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The  Women  of 
the  Renaissance 

*A  Study  of  Feminism 

By 

R.  de  Maulde  la  Clavi&re 

Translated  by 

George  Herbert  Ely 


"  The  path  of  a  good  woman  is  indeed 
strewn  with  flowers,  but  they  rise  behind 
her  steps,  not  before  them."— Ruskin. 


With  a  Portrait  of  the  Author 


New   York 

G.    P.     Putnam's     Sons 
27  and  29  West  23rd  Street 

1905 


First  Edition,  October,  1900  ;  Reprinted  (and  revised) 
December,  1900 ;  April,  1901 ;  August,  1905 


SRLF. 
.URL 


^0 

WILLIAM    ERNEST    HENLEY 

EDITOR   OP  TUDOR   TRANSLATIONS 

THIS  VERSION   IS 

INSCRIBED 


Vers  le  bonehwr  ! 


TRANSLATOR'S   PREFACE 

No  mere  translator  can  hope  to  preserve  the  style  of  his 
original,  and  herein  M.  de  Maulde  is  bound  to  suffer  more 
than  most  writers.  There  is  no  one  to  whom  Buffon's 
phrase,  Le  style  est  Vhomme  raeme,  may  be  more  justly 
applied.  His  work  is  absolutely  himself;  it  derives  from 
his  original  personality  and  his  wide  and  sure  learning 
an  historical  value  and  a  literary  charm  almost  unique. 
He  is  a  wit  with  the  curiosity  and  patience  of  the  scholar, 
and  a  scholar  with  the  temperament  of  the  artist.  The 
sparkle  and  humour  of  his  conversation  are  crystallised 
in  his  letters,  the  charming  expression  of  a  large  and 
generous  nature. 

Trained  at  the  fecole  des  Chartes,  M.  de  Maulde  held 
for  a  few  years  an  appointment  in  the  prefectoral  adminis- 
tration. But  his  tastes  drew  him  rather  to  history  than 
to  politics.  In  1886  he  founded  the  Socie'te'  d'Histoire 
diplomatique,  of  which  he  has  been  the  life  and  soul, 
and  which  owes  its  success  mainly  to  his  activity  and 
enthusiasm.  He  is  the  founder  also  of  the  Congres  inter- 
nationaux  d'histoire,  of  which  the  first  was  held  at  the 
Hague  in  the  summer  of  1898,  when  official  delegates 
from  all  the  great  countries  of  the  world  met  amicably 
to  discuss  international  relations  in  the  cold  light  of 
scientific  history.  For  many  years  he  has  been  a  member 
of  our  Royal  Society. 

But  it  is  above  all  as  a  student  of  the  Renaissance 
that  M.  de  Maulde  takes  high  rank  among  contemporary 


viii  PREFACE 

scholars.  He  has  made  a  close  study  of  that  great  move- 
ment, in  regard  both  to  the  internal  politics  of  France 
and  the  origins  of  modern  diplomacy,  and  to  the  general 
march  of  ideas  and  the  evolution  of  manners.  The  results 
of  his  studies  are  embodied  in  a  remarkable  series  of 
works,  the  earliest  being  a  book  entitled  Les  Origines  de 
la  Revolution  francaise  au  commencement  du  xvie  siecle 
— a  brilliant  picture  of  French  Society  at  that  critical 
epoch.  This  was  succeeded  by  the  first  part,  in  three 
volumes,  of  an  Histoire  de  Louis  XII.,  and  this  by  the 
three  volumes  entitled  La  diplomatic  au  temps  de 
Machiavel.  Other  works  in  the  same  series  are  two 
volumes  on  Jeanne  de  France,  duchesse  d'OrUans  and 
Louise  de  Savoie  et  Francois  /•"•  In  all  these  M.  de 
Maulde  shows  the  profound  erudition  and  the  just  critical 
sense  to  be  expected  in  an  historian  of  the  school  of  Fustel 
de  Coulanges,  together  with  a  literary  grace  and  a  light- 
ness of  touch  with  which  the  scientific  historian  is  too 
rarely  endowed.  His  brief  experience  of  official  politics 
seems  to  have  left  him  with  an  urbane  scepticism,  a 
benevolent  irony,  which  serve  only  to  set  off  his  radical 
enthusiasm  for  great  ideas  and  for  the  great  conceptions 
of  art.  At  bottom  an  idealist,  he  has  interpreted  with 
insight  and  humour  the  aesthetic  and  spiritualist  revolu- 
tion of  the  Renaissance,  nowhere  more  characteristically 
than  in  the  present  volume. 

With  M.  de  Maulde's  consent  the  greater  part  of  his 
footnotes  are  omitted — mainly  references  to  authorities 
unknown  or  inaccessible  to  the  English  reader,  and 
useless  without  the  complete  bibliography  omitted  by 
desire  of  the  French  publishers,  MM.  Perrin  et  Cie. 
A  few  notes  are  added  within  brackets:  for  these  and 
for  the  Index  the  translator  is  responsible. 

The  translator  is  under  great  obligations  to  the  Baronne 


PREFACE  ix 

Louise  Dupont-Delporte,  who,  at  M.  de  Maulde's  request, 
has  compared  the  proofs  of  this  book  with  the  original 
text,  and  to  whose  watchfulness  and  friendly  care  heartiest 
acknowledgments  are  due.  The  same  task  of  collation 
was  undertaken  by  Mr.  David  Frew,  whose  frank,  tonic, 
kindly  criticism  has  been  of  the  highest  value.  Thanks 
are  also  tendered  to  all  who  in  various  ways  and  with 
constant  kindness  have  given  their  assistance  in  the 
course  of  this  work,  among  whom  M.  de  Maulde  himself 
has  laid  the  translator  under  a  large  debt  of  gratitude. 

August,  1900. 


NOTE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 

The  early  demand  for  a  reprint  has  enabled  the  translator 
to  do  no  more  than  to  correct  a  few  misprints  and  over- 
sights and  to  remove  a  blunder.  To  all  those  critics  who 
have  so  generously  received  a  sincere  effort  be  cannot  be 
too  grateful. 

December,  1900, 


CONTENTS 


PREAMBLE 

Masculinism  of  Anglo-Saxon  countries — Feminism  of  Latin  countries. 

Pases  1-5 


INTRODUCTION, 

Italian  origin  of  the  Renaissance  feminist  movement — Protests  against 
war,  force,  the  materialisation  of  the  religious  spirit  and  the 
hollowness  of  learning — Recourse  to  the  affections — Quest  of  true 
happiness — Idealism  :  woman  chooses  the  method — "  Love  and 
faith" — Crusade  of  love — "Worship  of  life  and  hatred  of  death — 
Women  the  motive-force  of  life — Active  and  tranquillising  r61e  of 
Italian  women  in  the  16th  century — Conquest  of  France  by  the 
new  spirit — General  sentiment  of  the  new  society.         Pages  6-20 


BOOK  I.    FAMILY  LIFE 

CHAPTER  I 
MARRIAGE 

Marriage,  its  realist  character  and  its  difficulties — The  aim  of  marriage 
not  personal  satisfaction — The  girl  married  blindfold — The  father 
— Marriageable  age — Interviews — Reflections  of  the  father — Ideas 
of  the  bridegroom  elect — His  physical  and  moral  criterion 
— His    uneasiness — Final    crisis — Ideas    of    Michelangelo    and 


xii  CONTENTS 

Raphael — Marriage  ceremonies  and  festivities — "Weddings  at 
Naples,  Florence,  and  Venice — Behind  the  scenes — Weddings  in 
France— Brides'  journeys — Moral  aspects.  Pages  21-44 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  MARRIED  WOMAN 

The  genius  of  motherhood — Marriage  a  physical  science — Domestic 
difficulties — Platonism  in  marriage — Semi-wives — Wives  in  name 
only — Vocation  of  women  for  medicine — Women  as  sick-nurses — 
as  doctors — Enfranchisement  of  women  as  regards  medicine — 
Intimacies  between  women  and  doctors — Women's  medical  collec- 
tions— Hygienic  rules — Neurasthenia — Woman  as  home-ruler — 
The  chatelaine— Her  management  of  retainers— The  science  of 
charity — Principles  of  great  houses.  Pages  45-69 

CHAPTER  in 

THE  CHILDREN 

1.  Maternity. — Tendency  to  small  families,  its  various  causes — Marital 
misfortunes — How  new  arrivals  were  received — Unpopularity  of 
feeding  by  the  mothers — Children  educated  by  the  mother  till  the 
age  of  seven — Old  system  of  hardening — New  system  based  on 
reason.  2.  The  Boys. — Necessity  of  developing  individualism  among 
them — Paternal  education — Growing  influence  of  the  mother — 
College  life — Greatness  and  decadence  of  tutors — Understanding 
between  tutors  and  mothers — Excessive  production  of  young  men 
of  fashion — Influence  of  the  new  ideas — Decline  of  the  spirit  of 
toil  and  discipline.  Pages  70-85 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  EDUCATION  OF  GIRLS 

Girls  brought  up  solely  by  their  mothers — Old  theory  of  early  marriage 
— Education,  especially  physical  and  moral — Opinion  of  moralists 
and  physicians  :  counsels  of  Anne  of  France — Utilitarian  system 
of  Germany — The  intensive  school:  Vives;  St.  Theresa;  the 
Spanish  system — The  aesthetic  school :  Dolce ;  the  Italian  system — 
Louise  of  Savoy — New  theory  of  late  marriage — Protests  against 


CONTENTS  xiii 

the  realism  of  education— Tutors  of  girls — Moral  freedom  of  girls 
— Protests  against  what  they  read — The  story  for  girls,  after  Anne 
of  France — The  flirt — The  hunt  for  a  husband — Various  ideas 
on  that  matter — Coquetry,  intrigue,  chambermaids — Jean  Raulin's 
sermon — Open-air  life.  Pages  86-108 

CHAPTER  V 

THE  HUSBAND,  AND  THE  VARIOUS  WAYS  OF  SLIPPING 
HIS  YOKE 

The  husband  lord  and  master :  his  absolute  authority — The  stick — The 
wife's  insignificance — The  husband's  grievances  against  marriage 
— The  wife's  grievances — Beware  love ! — Modus  vivendi — "Women 
dowered  or  not :  growth  of  women's  influence  on  the  dowry  system 
— Practical  philosophy — Unsatisfied  affections — Wives  separated 
or  divorced — Widows — Sentimental  finery — The  wife  of  a  dead 
husband — Classical  widows :  their  spirit  of  order  and  piety — Gay 
widows — Widows'  virtue — Advantages  and  disadvantages  of 
widowhood — Re-marriage — Sincerity  of  women's  praise  of 
marriage.  Pages  109-135 


BOOK  II.    SOCIAL  LIFE 

CHAPTER  I 

PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE 

Individualistic  and  anti-philosophic  spirit  of  France — Flourishing  of 
the  salons — Reign  of  money  :  legitimated  in  Italy — The  Roman 
programme — French  society — Proposed  remedies  against  Christian 
socialism — Anne  of  France — School  of  Cardinal  d'Aniboise — 
Principles  of  sentimental  sociology — Social  raison  dStre  of  platon 
ism — Its  Florentine  origin — Development  of  the  doctrine — Intel- 
lectual aristocracy — Platonism  a  fashionable  craze — Discussions  on 
the  real  character  of  love — Cataneo — Eloquent  Bembo — Petrarch- 
ism —  Elevation  of  sentiments  by  platonism  —  Michelangelo  — 
French  opposition  to  platonism — Triumph  of  platonism  through 
Italian  ism  and  feminism — Anne  of  France — Margaret  of  France 
and  her  general  philosophy.  Pages  137-176 


riv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  SCIENCE  OF  PLATONISM 

la  platonism  dangerous  for  women  ? — Double  system  for  catching  men: 
passion  and  sensibility — To  spread  love  the  end  of  life  and  the 
secret  of  happiness — Platonic  virtue — Criticism  of  this  virtue  in 
practice — School  of  Anne  of  France— Vittoria  Colonna  and  Michel- 
angelo— Philosophic  school — Multiplication  and  withdrawal  of 
favours — Love  through  duty — Love  of  princesses — The  veil  of 
mystery — Practical  recruiting  of  platonism— Sources  of  love  or 
second  love.  Pages  177-193 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  MISSION  OF  BEAUTY 

Science  consists  in  extracting  the  element  of  happiness  from  every- 
thing, first  of  all  from  oneself — Beauty  a  social  duty — Charm 
has  no  physical  rules — Women  slight  or  the  reverse ;  blondes ; 
the  skin,  the  eyes — Corporeal  beauty — Michelangelo  and  Diirer — 
Portraits  of  women  as  Venus — Prudence  of  women — Artists  and 
their  fancies — Joan  of  Aragon — Margaret  of  France — Receptions 
in  the  morning — The  '  Innocents ' — Art  of  retaining  youth,  or  of 
restoring  youthfulness — A  lady's  toilette— Fashion — Spiritual 
significance  of  colours — Luxury — Architecture — Taste  for  fine 
furniture.  Pages  194-227 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  EMBROIDERY  OF  LIFE 

The  science  of  dining — Table-talk — Balls  and  dancing:  custom  of 
kissing — Protests  of  the  Reformers — Church— Pilgrimages — 
Gardens  and  country  life — Flowers — Pugs  and  parrots — The 
horse — Hunting,  Roman  and  platonist — Hunting  philosophised  ; 
Budti  and  Blondo — Park  animals — Nature — Life  at  watering- 
places  ;  pure  water ;  gravity  and  fun.  Pages  228-260 


CONTENTS  xv 

CHAPTER  V 

INTELLECTUAL  RESOURCES 

The  library — Curiosity  divided  and  dilettante  in  character — -Taste  for 
tales,  jest-books,  romances  —  The  old  poets  —  Music  —  Instru- 
ments, the  human  voice — Intellectual  music — Harmony — Sacred 
music — Chamber  music — The  orchestra — Discussion  on  the  abuse 
of  music — The  theatre — 'Phaedra,'  Bibbiena — The  Calandra — 
Opposition  to  the  theatre — French  ideas.  Pages  261-283 

CHAPTER  VI 

CONVERSATION 

Art  of  conversation :  its  supreme  rdle — "Women's  triumph — Tone  of 
conversation — Philosophical  spirit — Variety  of  form — Subjects  of 
conversation — French  conversation — Quips  and  cranks — Conver- 
sational dallyings — Stories — Dissertations — Gaieties — Correspond- 
ence, its  revival — Family  letters — Letters  in  the  grand  style — 
Tone  of  letters — Some  Italian  letters.  Pages  284-310 


BOOK  III.    THE  INFLUENCE  OF  WOMEN 

CHAPTER  I 

POLITICAL  INFLUENCE 

"Women  remain  strangers  to  the  keener  activities:  war,  justice — 
Women,  political  in  spite  of  themselves — Isabella  of  Aragon — 
Joan  of  Aragon — Anne  of  Franc* — Return  from  ambition  to 
love — Restless  women — Renee  of  France — Purely  defensive 
heroism  of  women — Ladies  of  Sienna  and  Pisa — Isabella  the 
Catholic — Catherine  Sforza — "Woman  according  to  Michelangelo. 

Pages  311-324 

CHAPTER  II 

MORAL  INFLUENCE 

The  good  old  times — Moral  degeneration — Ambition,  money — Evil,  to 
be  cured  homceopathically  as  in  Italy,  or  allopathically  as  in 
Germany? — Virtue,  must  it  necessarily  be  tiresome? — Raphael's 


xvi  CONTENTS 

embarrassment — The  antiplatonists — Louise  of  Savoy,  Rabelais — 
The  work  of  amelioration  by  two  methods,  (i)  The  softening  of 
virtue — Different  systems  in  regard  to  marriage ;  free  union  ; 
system  of  contract ;  the  double  marriage — Firenzuola — Marriages 
of  affection — Secondary  platonism,  a  compromise — Alms  without 
significance,  to  lure  the  human  animal — Sipping  at  love,  by 
way  of  Italian  dilettantism — The  attack — Love  a  dream — Prayer, 
(ii)  The  ennoblement  of  vice — Attempt  at  purification  of  carnal 
love — The  Italian  courtesans,  and  their  moral  influence — Tullia 
d'Aragona — Imperia — Venice — Francis  I. — French  system  of  the 
double  household — Diana  of  Poitiers — Bembo  in  tears — Infatua- 
tion— The  feminising  of  men — The  question  of  the  beard. 

Pages  325-371 

CHAPTER  III 

INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE 

Conquest  of  men  by  mind — Army  of  intellectual  women — Isabella 
d'Este — Anne  of  France — Margaret  of  France  :  her  theory — The 
friends  and  guests  of  Margaret— Intellectual  headquarters  of 
France — Egerias  —Difficulty  of  this  government — Vittoria  Colonna 
and  Aretino — Flatteries  and  compliments — Supervision  of  manu- 
scripts— Affection — Pecuniary  aid — Necessity  of  feminine  patron- 
age. Pages  372-397 

CHAPTER  IV 

INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  (Continued) 

Eesults  of  feminine  influence — Literature  in  praise  of  women — Pompeo 
Colonna — Two  schools  of  taste  :  passion,  sensibility — Castiglione — 
Literature  of  conversation — Fugitive  poems — Temples  of  high 
poetry — Literature  of  poodles  and  birds — The  ancestor  of  Vert- 
Vert — Spanish  women — France,  Lyons — Accusation  of  frivolity — 
German  scepticism — The  struggle  in  France — For  or  against 
women — Timidity  of  Frenchwomen — Spirit  of  the  prelates. 

Pages  398-421 

CHAPTER  V 

RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE 

Progress  of  religious  sensibility — Women  compared  to  the  moon — 
Entrance  of  the  sentimental  spirit — Free  enquiry  at  Rome  and  in 


CONTENTS  xvii 

Italy — Philosophic  religion — Entrance  on  the  scene  of  women  as 
priests,  as  well  as  physicians — Religious  traditions  of  women  in 
France — Decay  of  faith — Roman  liberalism — Situation  of  the 
French  clergy — Alliance  between  women  and  the  aesthetic  clergy- 
Liberal  principles  of  this  alliance — The  bibliennes — Aristocratic 
religion — Writings  of  the  mystic  women  :  Gabrielle  de  Bourbon, 
Catherine  d'Amboise — The  mystic  writings  of  Margaret  of  France, 
her  ideas — Her  relations  with  the  palinods — The  mystics — The 
mysticism  of  divided  application — Direct  communion  with  God — 
Smiling  character  of  the  new  mysticism — Spiritual  petrarchism — 
Correggio — Vittoria  Colonna — Vergerio.  Pages  422-453 


CHAPTEE  VI 

RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  {Continued) 

Scorners  of  mystic  liberalism — The  savants — Reproaches  addressed  to 
the  liberal  party :  paganism,  materialism — Women's  struggle 
against  these  tendencies — The  monks :  the  monastic  spirit — 
Struggle  against  the  monks :  the  pros  and  cons — Rabelais — 
Folengo — The  German  monks — Rising  of  the  lower  clergy  against 
liberalism  and  aestheticism :  Luther,  Calvin — Struggle  of  the 
Reformers  against  women  and  liberty  of  thought — Vittoria  Colonna 
and  Ochino — Direction  of  the  liberal  and  aesthetic  party  in  France 
— Margaret  of  France  and  her  active  rdle — Feminist  theory  of 
Postei — Replies  of  Luther,  the  Sorbonne,  the  theological  parties. 

Pages  454-474 


CONCLUSION 

Total  want  of  success  of  the  feminist  movement— Disappointments  of 
Margaret  of  France — Reaction  against  cosmopolitanism  and  in- 
tellectualism — The  spirit  of  the  Pleiade — Love  of  free  air — 
Margaret  of  Savoy — Fall  of  the  Roman  spirit — Montaigne — Last 
effects  of  feminism — The  triumph  of  Death — The  mistakes  of  the 
Renaissance  feminism — Disappearance  of  the  aesthetic  system — 
Sensualism  of  the  18th  century — The  naturalism  of  Ruskin. 

Pages  475-503 

INDEX  Pages  504-510 


PEEAMBLE 

The  woman  question — what  is  more  absorbing  ? 

What  do  women  want  ?  What  do  they  demand  ?  They 
have  been  shamefully  neglected.  To  judge  by  the  code,  there 
never  were  such  beings  on  earth.  But  the  code  has  hallowed 
iniquities.  The  education  of  women  is  pitiable.  They  ought 
to  know  everything — and  are  taught  nothing.  They  are 
deficient  in  intelligence — they  are  too  intelligent.  They 
ought  to  have  their  separate  careers,  their  separate  circles, 
their  independence — to  be  the  equals  of  their  husbands, 
to  be  men  and  yet  remain  women.  They  ought  to  have 
votes — that,  it  appears,  forms  one  element  of  happiness. 
Many  people  in  England  are  even  dreaming  of  suppressing 
marriage ;  and  it  must  be  observed  that,  as  Englishmen 
largely  expatriate  themselves,  there  is  no  lack  of  involuntary 
spinsters,  who  are  by  no  means  the  least  ardent  in  prosecut- 
ing the  campaign.  In  short,  it  is  a  very  babel.  Everyone 
ha3  something  to  say.  The  press,  the  stage,  the  pulpit, 
all  resound  with  these  questions — to  say  nothing  of  public 
meetings,  private  meetings,  at-homes,  lectures.  The  sub- 
ject is  well-nigh  done  to  death ;  it  has,  moreover,  a 
special  tendency  to  lose  itself  in  mist,  and  there  is  no  sort 
of  cohesion  in  outlook  or  aim. 

Nowhere  is  this  anarchy  more  patent  than  in  education. 
How  are  you  to  tell  young  girls  what  they  ought  to  be, 
what  they  ought  to  learn  and  think  and  know,  when  you 
are  absolutely  in  the  dark  as  to^  what  you  want  to  make_Qf  p^-Ac- 
them  ?  Are  they  to  play  the  same  part  in  life  as  men,  or  to 
perform  public  duties,  equal,  perhaps  superior,  to  theirs,  but 
different  ?  Are  they  to  marry  early,  or  late  ?  Ought  they 
to  see  and  know,  before  marriage,  all  there  is  to  see  and 
know  ?    Or  is  it  their  blissful  privilege  to  enjoy  the  pleasant 


2  THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

things  of  life  in  deliberate  ignorance  of  all  the  rest,  and,  in 
their  piping  time  of  peace,  to  turn  the  divine  hours  of  youth 
to  the  best  advantage  ?  Once  married,  what  is  their  mission 
to  be  ?  How  far  will  it  profit  them  to  have  learnt  the  whole 
art  of  household  management  ?  Should  they  exercise  any 
influence  out  of  doors  ?  If  so,  what  ?  Will  their  influence 
consist  in  preserving  their  good  looks  and  their  skill  in 
dancing?  Or  is  their  influence  to  be  a  serious  thing?  Is 
it  to  be  intellectual,  or  religious,  or  moral,  or  artistic,  or 
scientific?  These  questions  jostle  one  another  in  some 
confusion. 

And  the  confusion  is  irritating,  because  it  compels  us 
to  grope  our  way  haphazard.  The  education  of  girls  has 
seriously  suffered  thereby ;  it  has  been  frittered  away,  has 
bred  a  habit  of  easy  contentment  with  superficial  ideas 
rather  than  of  resolutely,  earnestly,  thoroughly  mastering 
what  it  is  proper  to  know.  The  mind,  like  the  body,  has 
its  nervous  system,  and  to  obtain  its  full  measure  of  energy 
it  is  needful  to  husband  its  resources. 

Now,  we  may  get  some  light  on  this  complicated  problem 
if  we  refer  it  to  experience,  or,  in  other  words,  apply  the 
lessons  of  the  past.  We  often  encounter  in  the  world,  in 
regard  to  history,  and  more  especially  the  history  of  morals, 
a  singular  prejudice  in  the  form  of  a  certain  optimism  (or 
pessimism)  which  imbues  us  with  the  idea  that  we  are 
the  first  or  almost  the  first  denizens  of  the  globe — that 
all  the  generations  whose  blood  flows  in  our  veins,  whose 
feelings  throb  in  our  breasts,  whose  traditions  govern  our 
thoughts,  were  composed  of  beings  essentially  unlike  our- 
selves, upon  whom  things  must  necessarily  have  made 
different  impressions.  This  idea  is  not  absolutely  correct ; 
in  reality,  we  depend  on  our  ancestors  to  an  almost  in- 
credible degree.  We  are  fettered  by  innumerable  bonds 
of  their  bequeathing — bonds  of  love  and  hate,  and  preju- 
dices of  every  kind ;  they  hold  us  in  leash  as  we  ourselves 
hold  our  descendants.  The  generations  flit  by  so  swiftly 
that  they  have  barely  time  to  transmit  life  ere  they  are 
gone. 

>  Especially  in  regard  to  the  condition  of  women,  the 
questions  that  are  agitated  to-day  with  more  or  less 
airiness  or  vehemence  are  almost  as  old  as  the  hills.  At 
certain  periods  they  have  been  investigated  more  closely 


PREAMBLE  3 

than  at  others,  and  then  learning,  philosophy,  and  experi- 
ence have  said  their  say. 

The  Renaissance  was  one  of  the  epochs  at  which  these 
questions  pushed  to  the  front.  Like  our  own  age,  it  was 
a  period  of  transition ;  its  conclusions  were  often  very 
different  from  our  own,  but  in  some  points  it  bore  a 
wonderful  likeness  to  the  present  day.  The  position  of 
women  then  underwent  an  almost  inevitable  transforma- 
tion, both  material  and  moral.  Up  to  that  time  women 
had  been  regarded  as  inferior  to  men ;  opinion  was  built  up 
on  the  practical  and  utilitarian  basis  still  cherished  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon  countries :  all  modes  of  activity  belonged  to 
the  men,  while  the  women's  duty  was  to  remain  at  home  as 
domestic  ornaments,  precious,  but  fragile. 

Yet  society  was  not  wholly  averse  to  granting  women 
what  we  call  the  right  to  a  career.  The  Salic  law  was 
exclusively  a  French  invention,  and  the  product  of  special 
circumstances ;  in  the  political  world  there  was  nothing  to 
prevent  the  acceptance  of  aid  from  women,  even  in  the  midst 
of  the  gravest  perils.  It  was  a  woman — and  a  woman  to 
the  finger-tips — Isabel  of  Bavaria,  who  all  but  ruined  us; 
Joan  of  Arc  was  our  salvation.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that,  in  later  years,  the  honour  and  might  of  France  were 
saved  by  Anne  of  Beaujeu  and  Louise  of  Savoy.  The  same 
thing  holds  from  top  to  bottom  of  the  social  ladder.  In 
certain  towns  women  might  have  been  seen  taking  part 
in  elections  in  the  public  square  ; *  in  many  of  the  chateaux 
the  lady  of  the  place,  in  the  absence  of  her  husband,  ful- 
filled the  most  trying  and  masculine  of  tasks,  administering 
justice,  commanding  the  men-at-arms.  Christine  de  Pisan 
speaks  of  this,  not  as  a  right,  but  as  a  rigorous  duty.2  Among 
the  working  classes  female  labour  was  extensively  employed, 
at  a  fairly  high  rate  of  pay. 

But  no  one  saw  in  this,  as  the  opinion  of  Christine  de 
Pisan  shows,  a  direct  and  natural  outlet  for  women's  activi- 
ties. A  woman  was  regarded  as  the  subject  of  her  husband, 
and  his  deputy  in  case  of  need ;  hers  was  not  a  personal 

1  Madame  Vincent  has  reminded  us,  in  an  interesting  memoir,  that  ladies 
at  one  time  sat  as  peers  of  France. 

2  As  administrative  authority  depended  on  territorial  possessions,  it  was 
quite  natural  that  women  should  exercise  it  on  occasion.  The  village  gilds, 
though  composed  of  men,  sometimes  elected  a  woman  as  president. 


\ 


4  THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

part ;  she  was  only  the  shadow  or  the  extension  of  another 
person — a  sort  of  half-man,  or,  as  caustic  folk  said,  an 
homme  d' occasion,  mas  occasionnatus — a  man  marred  in 
the  making.  (It  must  be  confessed  that  this  idea  is  rather 
hard  on  the  ladies,  and  even  on  us  men,  more  particularly 
because  Providence  does  not  take  us  into  consultation  in 
these  matters,  and  all  of  us,  men  and  women  alike,  have 
the  assurance  of  remaining  to  the  end  of  our  days  male 
or  female  as  God  made  us.)  On  that  system,  it  was 
allowable  for  women  in  cases  of  absolute  necessity  to 
perform  the  tasks  of  men,  though  the  men  could  scarcely 
offer  to  reciprocate ;  if  there  was  no  help  for  it,  women 
might  adopt  a  trade  or  profession,  but  that  appeared 
undesirable.  All  the  countries  faithful  to  these  ideas  were 
utilitarian  countries,  where  men  had  incontestably  the 
upper  hand,  and  where  no  great  need  was  felt  for  lofty 
nights. 

In  the  countries  of  Latin  blood  and  spirit  they  start 
from  a  principle  absolutely  the  reverse.  Women  are  not 
at  all  "  men  for  the  nonce " ;  in  the  picturesque  words  of 
good  Francois  de  Moulins,  addressed  to  his  pupil  Francis  I., 
"Never  forget  that  women  came  from  Adam's  side,  not 
from  his  feet."  They  are  not  substitutes  for  men,  but 
have  their  own  proper  sphere.  Castiglione  has  given  us 
the  typical  formula  in  his  famous  book  The  Courtier. 
"Man,"  says  he,  "has  for  his  portion  physical  strength 
and  external  activities;  all  doing  must  be  his,  all  inspira- 
tion must  come  from  woman."  She  is,  in  his  own  words, 
the  "motive  force."  One  recalls  the  smiling  remark  of 
the  charming  Duchess  of  Burgundy :  "  I  am  always 
delighted  when  it  is  women  who  govern,  because  then 
it  is  men  who  direct."  But  according  to  Castiglione,  the 
world  ought  to  show  the  very  opposite:  men  should 
govern  and  women  direct;  men  act,  women  think,  or 
mayhap  dream.  The  former  should  have  the  material 
tasks  of  administration  and  practical  affairs ;  the  latter 
the  spiritual  and  idealist  realm.  Looked  at  in  this 
way,  it  is  obvious  how  much  larger  the  woman's  part 
suddenly  becomes,  and  what  supreme  importance  it  holds 
in  the  life  of  the  world.  Instead  of  serving  her  husband 
merely  as  the  material  replenisher  of  his  stock  and  an 
under-manager  for  his  affairs,  the  woman  will  carve  out 


PREAMBLE  5 

her  own  path  and  enjoy  personal  freedom,  and  will  be 
the  better  able  to  lift  up  her  head  at  home  and  in  society 
for  knowing  that  she  represents  there  something  more  than 
the  flesh :  she  will  be  the  soul,  the  seeker  after  noble 
thoughts — thoughts  necessary  to  happiness,  but  which  the 
practical  spirit  of  men  scarcely  permits  them  to  pursue. 
There  will  be  no  question  (to  the  great  disappointment 
of  certain  modern  aesthetes,  who  after  all  profit  very 
largely  by  the  railways  and  telegraphs)  of  declaring  a 
relentless  war  against  industry,  manufactures,  the  business 
of  administration;  this  unpleasing  but  serviceable  sphere 
must  simply  be  left  to  men,  and  upon  this  sordid  earthly 
existence  must  be  erected  the  frail  edifice  of  general 
happiness — the  true  life — a  life^of  enthusiasm,  beauty,  ^ 
and  thought ;  in  other  words,  we  must  relax  the  bonds 
of  the  material  life,  take  time  to  fetch  our  breath,  and 
infuse  into  realism  a  new  and  brighter  spirit  by  means 
of  the  love  of  the  beautiful.  That  is  women's  task ;  in 
the  words  of  Ecclesiastes,  "Their  hearts  are  snares  and 
nets,  their  hands  are  as  chains."  They  are  the  queens 
of  happiness,  and  they  must  compel  us  to  be  happy  and 
to  enjoy  the  happiness  necessary  to  us. 

With  this  end  in  view,  the  women  of  the  Renaissance 
formed  a  league:  they  accomplished  on  behalf  of  the 
rights  of  the  heart  a  sort  of  coup  d'etat,  the  story  of  which 
we  are  about  to  relate.  Finally,  no  one  was  happy  after  all. 
But  it  is  interesting  to  know  why. 

First,  let  us  explain  in  a  few  words  how  it  came  about 
that  in  a  country  like  France  women  were  able  to  assume 
so  important  a  part.  Then,  we  shall  proceed  to  show  how 
vast  was  their  effort,  how  ardent  their  quest  for  happiness, 
and  we  shall  see  why  the  formula  they  discovered  has  not 
come  down  to  us. 


INTRODUCTION 


France  is  a  singular  country.  We  are  slightly  Greek, 
half  Latin  or  Ligurian,  very  Gallic  or  very  German,  and 
in  the  West,  the  country  of  an  intellectual  gulf-stream, 
we  are  dreamers — the  Celts  of  M.  Legouve"s  enthusiasm. 
All  of  us,  whatever  our  stock,  professed  in  the  Middle 
Ages  to  adore  women;  the  author  of  an  old  fabliau 
makes  the  Virgin  ask  of  one  of  our  gallant  knights  the 
subtle  and  searching  question,  "Is  thy  lady  fairer  than 
I  ?  "  But  in  practice — in  other  words,  in  our  home  life — 
we  treated  women  like  animals,  with  the  whip. 

We  must  remark  also  that,  during  the  whole  course  of 
the  fifteenth  century,  France  had  no  time  for  philosophising : 
the  Hundred  Years  War  and  the  awful  distresses  resulting 
from  it;  the  iron  hand  and  heavy  taxation  of  Louis  XI., 
whose  rule  was  regenerative  but  very  severe;  then  the 
Civil  War  and  the  Italian  expedition — all  these  circum- 
stances left  us  no  breathing-space,  and  are  in  some  measure 
the  justification  of  an  aftermath  of  brutality.  It  was  only 
in  the  last  years  of  the  century  that  peace  allowed  us  to 
reflect,  and  then  activity,  prosperity,  and  happiness  burst 
out  like  a  lightning-flash.  Louis  XL,  who  had  clear  and 
definite  rights  over  France,  had  dealt  with  her  like  a 
strenuous  husband ;  Louis  XII.,  who  wedded  her  by  chance, 
treated  her  with  the  delicate  worship  of  a  lover  who  has 
thrown  off  the  every-day  concerns  of  life. 

By  what  happy  chance  did  the  French,  till  then  so  apt, 
whatever  they  professed,  to  value  women  only  on  the 
physical  side,  take  under  the  influence  of  kindly  peace  and 
individual  well-being  a  step  further  towards  the  South, 
and  come  to  think  that  women  might  serve  as  social  guides? 
The  genesis  of  these  ideas  was  very  remarkable. 

6 


INTRODUCTION  7 

They  came  from  elsewhere. 

During  our  convalescence,  Italy  had  become  transformed. 
A  great  revolution,  moral,  religious,  scientific,  and  above  all 
aesthetic,  had  brought  once  more  upon  the  arena  the  two 
eternal  protagonists — the  Roman  spiritualists,  and  the 
friends  of  material  force,  that  is,  of  imperial  Germany. 

Men  are  in  general  inclined  to  the  side  of  force ;  their 
idea  of  happiness  consists  in  imposing  their  will  upon 
others,  no  matter  how  brutally,  or  at  any  rate  in  donning  a 
uniform — they  are  born  fighters  or  jockeys. 

Women,  on  the  contrary,  can  only  hope  to  exert  direct  and 
effectual  action  by  the  spiritualising  of  society ;  and  it  is 
not  by  handing  themselves  over  to  the  tender  mercies  of 
men,  whoever  they  may  be — husbands,  lovers,  doctors, 
hydrotherapists — or  by  aping  the  manners  and  talk  of 
men,  that  they  acquire  their  liberty.  They  are  taken  at  their 
own  valuation,  provided  they  accentuate  their  purely  femi- 
nine qualities. 

This  was  thoroughly  understood  by  the  women  of  Italy, 
who  managed  so  well  that  the  crisis  turned  quite  naturally 
to  their  advantage,  without  any  theories  whatever.1  Neither 
the  accepted  classics  nor  Plato  gave  them  any  assistance ; 
they  triumphed  of  themselves,  and  often  at  their  own  cost, 
because  they  accomplished  their  own  education  before 
undertaking  that  of  others.  Many  of  them,  instructed, 
stout-hearted,  nobly  generous,  while  men  were  wasting  their 
activities  abroad,  consistently  embodied  at  home  the  superb 
saying  of  Christ,  "  Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled  " — the 
only  prescription  yet  discovered  for  the  cure  of  neurasthenia. 
People  poked  fun  at  them,  accused  them  of  "wanting  to 
wear  the  breeches."2  Italian  husbands  were  no  more  in- 
clined than  others  to  fall  at  their  wives'  feet  and  proclaim 
their  divinity :  they  accustomed  themselves  to  them 
gradually,  almost  unawares.  It  was  natural  that  the  dis- 
appointments, vexations  and  trials  of  politics  or  business 
should  throw  them  in  this  direction ;  what  was  more  fortu- 

1  "The  history  of  marriage  is  the  history  of  a  relation  in  which  women 
have  gradually  triumphed  over  the  passions,  prejudices,  and  selfish  interests 
of  men  :  that  is  the  picture  of  true  progress.       (F.  Brunetiere.) 

8  An  Italian  caricature  of  about  the  year  1450  (repeated  by  the  French  in 
the  sixteenth  century)  gives  a  satirical  representation  of  women  violently 
struggling  to  wear  trunk-hose. 


8  THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

nate  and  less  expected  was  that,  women  having  monopolised 
all  that  made  life  worth  living,  men  one  day  awoke  to  the 
fact  that  women  were  the  glory  of  all  distinguished  families, 
and  that,  thanks  to  them,  life  had  become  an  art,  a  passion. 

They  began,  then,  by  shedding  a  domestic  radiance;  it 
was  by  filling  their  own  home  with  light  and  hope  and  joy 
that  they  began  to  quicken  the  world  at  large.  The  science 
of  happiness  established  itself  under  a  wholly  practical  and 
empirical  form,  like  the  science  of  medicine ;  for  the  heart 
needs  the  ministry  of  healing,  a  more  difficult  and  perhaps 
more  delicate  art  than  that  of  the  body.  Where  can  you 
apply  a  thermometer  to  test  the  temperature  of  the  soul  ? 
Moral  sufferings  have  the  peculiarity  of  concealing  them- 
selves, even  when  physical  collapse  is  the  result;  they  are  not 
easily  diagnosed,  and  no  one  understands  them:  and,  further, 
they  manifest  themselves  oddly.  It  is  in  the  pride  of  life, 
when  one  feels  strongest,  that  one  is  weak  and  in  danger ; 
peace  is  more  treacherous  than  strife,  health  more  perilous 
than  sickness,  strength  feebler  than  weakness.  Or,  if  one  is 
conscious  of  the  mischief,  one  despairs  of  finding  the  remedy, 
which  consists  of  compassion  and  generosity.  Woman's 
medicines  are  love  and  hate. 

Love — that  is  to  give  something  derived  from  herself;  to 
act,  not  through  that  long-armed  vulgar  charity  (though 
this,  too,  has  its  merits — and  is  often  very  tiresome)  which 
aims  at  heading  a  subscription  list  or  presiding  at  a  public 
meeting,  but  through  that  modest  individual  charity  which 
humbly  and  quietly  diffuses  a  little  affection,  cheerfulness, 
and  enthusiasm.  These  are  the  real  great  ladies ;  to  them, 
giving  is  a  necessity,  a  second  nature.  They  are  born 
generous.  They  seek  their  own  happiness  in  the  happiness 
of  others,  without  stopping  to  ask  themselves  if  their  con- 
duct is  philosophic. 

Hate  !  They  detest  and  resolutely  combat  the  elements 
of  force  in  which  men  most  delight,  but  which,  as  women 
believe,  produce  the  worst  ills ;  and  these  are,  the  power  of 
money,  the  power  of  war. 

The  egotism  of  wealth  they  regard  as  the  very  source  of 
materialism,  against  which  they  cannot  but  struggle.  On 
this  point  the  women  of  the  Renaissance  bore  the  brunt  of 
a  long  and  skilfully  fought  battle,  which  we  shall  follow  in 
all  its  phases. 


INTRODUCTION  9 

As  for  war,  that  is  the  arch-enemy  against  which  their 
first  blows  are  aimed.  The  little  Italian  wars  of  the  Middle 
Ages  did  not  resemble  the  vast  hecatombs  of  to-day,  but 
they  bred  a  swarm  of  atrocities,  tumults  and  feuds ;  war  is 
less  cruel,  perhaps,  when  it  is  not  a  mere  pastime.  To 
storm  a  place  at  the  opening  of  a  campaign  is  regarded  as  a 
humane  act  and  good  tactics,  since  in  the  long  run  it 
shortens  the  struggle ;  but  the  horror  of  it !  Naturally, 
women  are  the  worst  sufferers.  In  vain  do  they  push  their 
way  through  the  flames  to  the  feet  of  some  cold  stone  angel 
or  some  Madonna  with  her  eternal  smile ;  you  see  poor  girls 
flinging  themselves  into  the  water,  and  noble  ladies  going 
about  serenely  and  deftly  to  save  what  can  be  saved — their 
husbands'  lives  or  their  own  fortunes.  Many  centuries  had 
passed  since  St.  Augustine  had  offered  his  tender  consola- 
tions to  the  victims  of  the  barbarians ;  they  might  appro- 
priately have  been  offered  when  the  French  captured  Padua 
or  the  Germans  Rome,  or  even  at  that  obscure  assault  of 
Rivolta  in  1509,  when  an  Italian  captain  devoured  the 
heart  of  one  of  his  political  enemies,  disembowelled  the 
man's  wife,  and  made  horse-troughs  of  their  corpses. 

Even  if  we  ignore  gross  infamies  like  these,  war  was  not 
more  humane.  The  historian  of  Bayard  cannot  find  words 
to  celebrate  the  magnanimity  of  his  hero  in  so  generously 
respecting  two  high-born  maidens  of  Brescia  who  had  re- 
ceived him  into  their  house,  tended  him  and  healed  his 
wounds  with  the  devotion  of  sisters  of  mercy.  And  even  in 
times  of  peace  military  habits  were  commonly  so  intoler- 
able that  quiet  folk  fervently  prayed  for  a  war  to  bring 
them  relief. 

For  centuries  sages  and  philosophers  had  been  expatiat- 
ing on  the  evils  of  war ;  councils  had  attempted  to  intervene; 
but  war  continued  to  flourish.  The  idea  of  suppressing  it 
seemed  a  mere  Utopian  dream. 

They  might  have  tried  at  least  to  stem  its  flood  by  an 
appeal  to  the  co-operation  of  moral  forces;  but,  singularly 
enough,  the  more  brilliant  the  fifteenth  century  in  Italy 
became  in  art  and  intellect,  the  more  its  moral  forces 
appeared  to  decline. 

Christianity,  too  often  sunk  into  mere  mechanical  routine, 
teeming  with  abuses,  overloaded  with  observances,  had 
practically  lost  all   influence.     Side  by  side  with  a  few 


10         THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

clergy  somewhat  above  the  rank  and  file  in  culture,  there 
was  a  crowd  of  empirics  who  rarely  troubled  their  heads 
with  thinking  things  out  for  themselves ;  they  discoursed, 
not  of  love  or  hope,  but  only  of  faith — a  faith  which  brutish 
men  wished  to  destroy,  and  the  more  refined  few  wished  to 
vivify,  and  which  was  thus  doubly  imperilled.  The  common 
people  were  indifferent,  and  allowed  themselves  still  to 
be  lulled  by  the  old  crooning  melodies  to  which  they  were 
accustomed  ;  they  remained  Christian  from  sheer  indolence, 
like  many  men  of  quality ;  but  it  was  open  to  question 
whether  the  first  shock  would  not  set  them  clamouring  for 
a  more  lively  tune — an  "  air  of  flutes  and  violins,"  as  Heine 
said ;  paradise  instead  of  hell. 

As  to  learning,  the  cultured  were  agreed  in  recognising 
its  failure ;  that,  indeed,  was  beyond  question.  Men  were 
tired  of  reasoning,  reading,  writing,  worrying !  Learning 
in  tragic  dismay  sought  only  to  prostrate  itself  before  faith; 
or  rather,  men  asked  themselves  whether  learning  really 
existed.  Tiphernus,  an  eminent  professor  at  the  Sorbonne, 
and  in  high  favour  at  Rome,  confesses  that  all  this  learning 
so  much  belauded  and  paraded  seemed  to  him  nothing  but 
a  means  of  earning  a  living  for  professors,  a  combination  of 
all  the  vanities,  the  technical  slang  of  a  crowd  of  pedants, 
critics  more  or  less  ignorant,  and  shameless  imitators,  who 
formed  little  cliques  beyond  whose  pale  there  was  no 
salvation.  "  To  believe  them,"  he  exclaimed,  "  we  are  not 
equal  to  the  ancients  " :  then  lions  forsooth  have  lost  their 
ferocity,  and  hares  their  cowardice,  for  Providence  shines 
for  the  whole  world,  and  it  cannot  be  that  man  alone  has 
degenerated !  A  league  of  falsehood !  he  reiterates.  Under 
cloak  of  high  culture  men  conceal  their  vices,  and  especially 
their  idleness.  Do  what  we  may,  we  are  progressing : 
every  one  of  us  is  conscious  of  a  forward  impulsion.  The 
pontiffs  of  reason,  who  have  painfully  climbed  the  steep 
ascent,  wish  to  keep  everything  to  themselves,  and  to 
set  up  their  books  as  a  balk  to  the  world,  but  all  in  vain; 
they  will  never  persuade  us  that  their  collapse  is  that  of 
nature. 

Tiphernus  died  about  1466.  From  that  time  forth 
science  was  flouted.  It  gave  the  world,  nevertheless,  what 
it  was  destined  to  give — fire-arms,  Greece,  many  admirable 
things — everything  but    happiness,   which    it   had    never 


INTRODUCTION  11 

undertaken  to  provide.  And  it  was  precisely  on  this  point 
that  the  great  mistake  was  made.  What,  men  asked,  is  the 
good  of  learning,  money,  labour,  or  even  semblances  of  joy, 
if  we  are  oppressed  by  a  life  of  contention  and  heaviness  ? 
Why  are  we  born  with  wits,  why  should  we  rule  multi- 
tudes, thrill  men's  souls,  dwell  in  palaces,  if  our  hearts  are 
empty  ?  Suppose  we  wrest  Nature's  secrets  from  her,  work 
every  vein  of  ore,  crop  every  blade  of  grass  :  suppose  the 
race  of  men  to  form  one  magnificent  herd,  fat  and  flourish- 
ing, and  even  peaceably  inclined — what  is  the  good  of  it  all 
if  there  is  no  joy  ?  All  things  live  by  love ;  the  heart 
makes  itself  heard  above  the  claims  of  work,  above  the 
intellect,  demanding  for  life  a  recompense,  a  goal.  We  perish 
for  lack  of  something  to  love  ;  out  of  mere  self-pity  we 
ought  to  bestow  on  ourselves  the  alms  of  life,  which  is  love. 
All  is  vanity  save  this  vanity,  for  before  our  birth,  until  our 
death,  throughout  our  whole  existence,  it  bears  in  front  of 
us  the  torch  of  life. 

Perhaps  it  might  be  better  if  men  could  be  governed 
mechanically  and  reasonably  from  an  armchair  in  the  library 
by  dint  of  syllogisms.  Unhappily,  they  love  only  what  pleases 
them;  they  are  big,  greedy  children,  listless  and  lazy  if  you 
talk  to  them  of  reason,  but  ready  to  break  their  necks  in 
pursuit  of  an  illusion.  Hence  it  is  very  necessary  to  choose 
one's  illusions  well,  and  well  to  employ  them. 

The  eternal  illusion  is  love. 

But  what  is  love  ?  That  is  the  real  question.  If  it  is  a 
Petrarchan  flower,  we  crush  it  under  our  steel- tipped  boots; 
if  it  is  a  coarse  sensation,  it  crushes  us,  and  we  have  to 
wrestle  with  it.  Thus  we  must  arrive  at  a  new  fact — a  love 
which  is  neither  a  beautiful  superfluity  nor  a  vile  sensual 
thing ;  which,  in  short,  is  a  direct  outcome  of  the  worship 
of  beauty. 

We  must  discover  a  new  sensibility,  lofty,  strong,  fruitful, 
spiritual,  almost  sacerdotal,  which  serves  to  link  minds 
together  in  their  common  pursuit  of  a  high  ideal.  To  us 
French  this  intricate  problem  seemed  highly  discouraging 
and  perhaps  silly,  but  its  importance  was  recognised  in  Italy, 
the  classic  ground  of  love's  quintessences,  where  even  to-day 
a  candidate  for  Parliament  had  better  speak  of  love  than  of 
the  sugar  bounties. 

The  science  of  sensibility  is  to  most  men  a  fountain  sealed ; 


12         THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

they  always  fancy  themselves  to  be  too  robust !  They  march 
straight  on  in  parallel  lines;  military  devotion  is  their  virtue; 
women  alone  can  serve  as  a  bond  of  union,  soften  and  beautify 
everything,  cover  with  a  varnish  of  glory  and  disinterested- 
ness the  things  that  need  it.  Hence,  besides  their  mission 
at  home,  they  may  be  said  to  have  a  social  part  of  the  first 
importance  to  play ;  the  more  sensible  men  become  to  their 
social  influence,  the  higher  is  man's  civilisation. 

Now  at  the  very  period  when  France  decided  to  move,  the 
women  of  Italy  had  long  since  shown  what  could  be  expected 
of  women  in  this  direction.  They  often  flaunted  sentiments 
which  are  open  to  the  charge  of  audacity  or  naivete',  primi- 
tive sentiments,  k  la  Botticelli  or  Perugino,  crude  to  a 
degree ;  there  were  manifestly  many  women  of  young  and 
fresh  affections  who  opposed  to  the  simplicity  of  brute  force 
that  charming  form  of  simplicity,  that  adorable  confidence 
in  the  things  of  life,  which  the  worship  of  the  beautiful  gives 
to  unsoiled  souls.  They  are  to  the  women  of  the  eighteenth 
century  what  Memling  is  to  Watteau.  Properly  to  under- 
stand their  spiritual  condition  we  should  have  to  do  as  they 
did — solve  the  problem  of  feminism  in  the  feminine  way, 
be  women,  and  more  than  women — arch-women. 

The  fulfilment  of  their  natural  vocation,  namely,  to  look 
after  the  amenities  of  life,  was  a  pretty  extensive  office,  in 
a  country  where  art  and  taste  had  so  prominent  a  place. 
But  they  went  farther.  They  inculcated  moral  strength 
through  beauty;  they  dreamt  of  raising  men,  of  plunging 
into  their  life  like  rescuing  angels.  Some  critics  say  that 
the  intervention  of  women  is  always  a  proof  of  men's 
decadence,  and  that  when  they  save  us,  we  are  in  parlous 
need  of  saving.  Unhappily  that  is  our  normal  state. 
Women  assuredly  represent  the  Red  Cross  of  society ;  it  is 
the  duty  of  us  men  to  be  purblind  and  case-hardened  to  the 
brutalities  of  life,  or  even  to  find  a  certain  happiness  there- 
in, and  to  remain  cold  like  a  sword-blade ;  women  have  no 
right  to  escape  wounding  by  the  despicable  and  shameful 
things  among  us.  They  would  prefer,  you  say,  to  remain 
quietly  gathering  flowers  behind  their  park  walls;  that  is 
perfectly  true ;  they  only  act  from  a  sense  of  duty,  because 
they  no  longer  wish  to  serve  as  the  stake  of  battles,  because 
there  is  no  misery,  no  injustice,  no  disgrace  for  which  a 
woman  of  heart  does  not  feel  responsible.     In  fulfilling  this 


INTRODUCTION  13 

mission  they  do  not  humble  us ;  on  the  contrary,  we  can 
have  no  higher  ambition  than  to  desire  peace,  no  action  can 
less  degrade  us  than  to  bend  in  respect  before  the  noblest 
things  in  the  world — weakness  and  sentiment.  It  was  the 
conviction  of  all  the  sons  of  the  Renaissance,  and  of  its 
great-grandsons  (even  the  last  and  most  sceptical  of  them, 
like  M.  Merimee),  that  sentiment  has  higher  lights  than 
reason,  and  that  certain  intuitions  of  the  heart  unfold  to  us, 
as  in  bygone  days  to  Socrates,  horizons  hitherto  beyond  our 
ken — a  foretaste  of  the  divine.  Tired  of  spinning  round  in 
the  vain  and  narrow  circle  of  reasoning,  these  men,  sceptics 
in  their  own  despite,  come  to  place  their  trust  in  sentiment, 
in  hope  and  love :  they  lean  upon  women  who  see  things 
with  the  eyes  of  love.  In  this  they  find  a  certain 
happiness,  and  at  all  events  the  secret  of  strength.  No 
doubt  the  men  of  the  fifteenth  century  did  not  attach  to 
the  idea  ot  number  the  philosophic  importance  given  it  since 
their  time  ;  it  was  recognised  that  in  the  name  of  the  rights 
ot  intelligence  a  general  should  command  a  whole  army,  a 
professor  direct  his  pupils,  a  masted  his  workmen ;  three 
robbers  united  against  one  honest  man.tnough  in  the  majority, 
did  not  appear  to  have  right  on  their  side ;  but  it  is  none 
the  less  true  that  intellectual  isolation  has  always  created  a 
situation  of  difficulty.  "  The  vulgar  ma.j  judge  me  as  they 
please  and  take  me  for  what  they  will,"  heatedly  exclaims 
Tiphernus,  the  professor  of  whom  we  have  already  spoken  ; 
"  let  others  please  the  multitude !  As  for  me,  I  pride  myself 
on  pleasing  two  or  three."  All  the  clever  men  who  speak  so 
eloquently  are  sure  to  be  in  bondage  to  some  woman;  for, 
after  all,  the  approbation  of  two  or  three  men,  howsoever 
intelligent,  would  not  carry  them  very  far,  while  with  the 
enthusiasm  of  two  or  three  women  one  can  at  a  pinch  be 
satisfied.  And  thus  the  work  of  civilisation  is  accomplished; 
vulgarity,  even  the  vulgarity  of  common  sense,  is  hidden 
under  a  coating  of  the  ideal,  women  having  a  horror  of  force, 
of  the  law  of  number,  of  all  that  is  banal  and  coarse. 

Such  was  the  atmosphere,  absolutely  new  and  somewhat 
overheated,  in  which  the  influence  of  women  developed  and 
flourished.  The  revolution  was  a  profound  one :  hitherto 
the  social  system  had  turned  entirely  on  the  principle  of  the 
good  and  the  true,  from  which  a  practical  and  utilitarian 
morality  was  derived.    The  idea  of  the  beautiful  was  utterly 


14         THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

mistrusted,  and,  far  from  believing  in  its  purifying  force, 
many  people  saw  in  it  only  a  cause  of  moral  enfeeblement. 
Men  had  preached  a  religion  of  gloom  and  manifold  obser- 
vances ;  it  seemed  that  there  was  no  mean  in  life  between 
the  virginal  precepts  of  a  catechism  of  Perseverance 1  and  the 
lowest  stages  of  vice.  And  now  the  new  generations  were 
no  longer  willing  to  regard  earthly  happiness  as  an  illusion, 
nor  the  love  inculcated  by  the  Gospel  as  a  snare,  and  flattered 
themselves  on  finding  a  means  of  building  life  upon  liberty. 
A  mysticism,  compact  of  snow  and  mist,  had  glorified  self- 
repression,  scepticism  in  regard  to  earthly  things,  the  joys  of 
suffering  or  at  least  the  quest  of  happiness  through  resig- 
nation ;  and  its  effect  had  been  to  raise  a  select  few  to  a  state 
of  ethereal  perfection,  and  to  unloose  the  mass  of  mankind 
to  an  unbridled  savagery.  The  moral  pendulum  had 
oscillated  violently  between  ether  and  mud,  mud  and  ether, 
a  condition  of  instability  like  that  described  by  M.  Huysmans 
to-day. 

And  on  the  other  hand  people  wished  to  live  henceforth 
under  a  calm  and  radiant  sky ;  they  talked  of  taking  the 
gifts  of  God  as  they  found  them,  denying  neither  body  nor 
soul,  but  idealising  everything.  They  contented  themselves 
with  affirming  the  pre-eminence  of  the  soul ;  apparently  the 
science  of  happiness  was  to  consist  in  abstracting  themselves 
from  the  material  and  the  personal  and  in  going  straight 
back  to  ideas.  From  that  time  it  truly  belongs  to  women 
to  govern  the  higher  world,  the  realm  of  sentiment.  They 
will  lull  the  appetites  to  sleep ;  they  will  charm  men  of  dull 
burdened  soul  subdued  to  earth  by  daily  toil ;  they  will 
choose  out  the  refined,  the  buoyant  in  soul,  to  form  them 
into  an  intellectual  aristocracy :  the  others  will  at  least  be 
lifted  a  little  above  themselves. 

The  refined  are  recognised  by  their  thirst  for  the  ideal. 
At  first  blush  one  might  suppose  they  will  be  met  especially 
among  men  of  the  upper  classes,  or  at  least  among  men  of 
leisure,  for  these  are  fortunate  in  being  able  to  look  into 
their  own  hearts  and  to  follow  their  own  bent,  and  in 
opportunities  for  gaining  impressions.  They  are  not  de- 
formed by  drudgery,  they  have  bathed  their  souls  in  the 
great  sights  of  Nature;  the  Mediterranean,  delicious  and 

['  The  manual  of  religious  instruction  given  to  French  girls  on  attaining 
the  age  of  twelve.] 


INTRODUCTION  15 

bewitching,  has  cradled  them  on  her  kindly  bosom,  and  has 
already  accomplished  for  them  half  of  the  task  by  reflecting 
the  sky  in  her  feminine  smile.  But  no;  for  lack  of  dis- 
cipline, the  idle  tend  toward  sensuality.  Consequently, 
women  will  address  themselves  more  especially  to  the  men 
who  can  work. 

And  their  scheme  will  be  this.  They  will  interpose, 
almost  like  angels,  between  heaven  and  earth ;  they  will 
love  us  and  we  shall  love  them ;  they  will  gently  invert  the 
order  of  things,  so  as  to  make  of  life  a  work  of  art.  They 
will  efface  two  of  the  three  blind  forces  which  govern  us — 
Death,  Fortune,  and  Love.  If  they  do  not  prevent  all  failures 
and  weaknesses,  they  will  cheer  and  comfort  them  by  means 
of  a  potent  elixir,  obtained  from  a  God  of  philosophy,  like 
physicians  who  cure  by  allopathy.  So  many  springs  are 
creaking  and  snapping  for  want  of  a  drop  of  oil !  they  will 
pour  out  that  drop.  So  many  noble  things  lack  the  sap  of 
life !  they  will  give  them  that  sap,  that  vitality,  that  soul. 
The  sap  of  love  brings  grapes  from  thorns  ! 

Si  l'amour  fault,  la  foy  n'est  plus  ck6rie  j 
Si  foy  pent,  l'amour  s'en  va  perie. 
Pour  ce,  les  ay  en  devise  liez  : 
Amour  etfoy.1 

And  thereby  the  transformation,  or  at  any  rate  the 
amelioration,  of  the  world  is  to  be  achieved.  Men  are  not, 
perhaps,  so  intractable  and  brutal  as  they  pretend ;  by  their 
own  account  they  would  be  quite  content  to  accomplish  the 
journey  of  life  eating  and  sleeping  behind  drawn  curtains. 
We  must  not  believe  them.  They  have  shut  themselves  up 
in  a  bare  workshop :  throw  open  the  windows,  let  the  sun 
stream  broadly  in,  bringing  light  and  warmth  and  the  balmy 
breath  of  nature.  The  effects  of  the  old  system  of  morality, 
with  its  bolts  and  bars,  have  been  seen  only  too  often ;  the 
loathing  of  vice,  the  noble  pride  of  virtue  and  aesthetic 
intelligence  are  also  forces  ;  and  they  alone  can  make  of  our 
terrible  abode  a  truly  sacred  dwelling,  open,  free,  dear  to  our 
hearts,  the  monument  of  human  affection  and  of  happiness. 

1  Clement  Marot  on  the  motto  of  Madame  de  Lorraine : 
[If  love  fail,  faith  is  surely  slain  ; 
If  faith  die,  love  flies  hence  amain  ; 
So  in  one  motto  link  the  twain — 
Faith  and  love.] 


16         THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Thus,  briefly,  the  conclusion  was  reached  that  women  can 
transform  themselves  and  become  the  chief  element  in 
human  society,  that  of  happiness.  Hitherto  they  had  been 
understudies  to  their  husbands;  they  had  believed  them- 
selves bound  to  take  an  interest  in  the  work,  ideas,  and 
tastes  of  a  man,  with  no  other  recompense  than  the  satis- 
faction derived  from  a  duty  done.  They  had  to  issue  forth 
like  butterflies  from  the  chrysalis,  and  to  become  women  full 
of  charm,  in  order  to  direct  the  affairs  which  men  believed 
they  had  in  their  own  hands,  and  in  order  to  fascinate,  to 
enfold,  to  struggle  if  need  be,  but  without  violence  or  parade. 
Then  they  had  to  rise  a  step  higher,  become  objects  of  love, 
propagate  love,  and  bring  all  things  into  harmony. 

Thanks  to  these  ideas,  Italy  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
century  had  taken  a  marvellous  bound  towards  the  beauti- 
ful.1 

Spain  likewise  had  leapt  towards  chivalry;  it  was  like 
the  raising  of  a  curtain,  so  sudden  was  the  change :  women, 
hitherto  shut  up  in  their  boudoirs,  appeared  in  all  their 
radiance  like  goddesses. 

France,  on  the  contrary,  viewed  these  new  ideas  with 
profound  mistrust,  and  long  rejected  them  because  of  their 
Italian  origin.  We  knew  Italy,  but  under  very  false  colours; 
she  gloried  in  rising  superior  to  wealth  and  rank,  in  the  im- 
portance of  women,  prelates,  and  artists  in  her  life;  while 
we  only  knew  her  through  merchants  and  soldiers.  Her 
bankers  established  in  our  towns — "Lombards,"  as  they 
were  scornfully  called — passed  in  the  eyes  of  the  people 
for  men  without  a  country,  for  birds  of  prey  akin  to  the 
Jews  ;  our  knights,  still  bewitched  by  the  joys  of  their  ex- 
peditions, spoke  carelessly  only  of  a  people  without  weapons 
and  of  defenceless  women.  The  French  clergy  chimed  in 
with  their  note  of  bitter  opposition  to  Rome.  And  thus 
Italy  was  readily  imagined  as  a  hot-bed  of  pleasure :  but 
to  go  there  in  quest  of  the  philosophic  secret  of  happiness 
seemed  absurd. 

In  the  intellectual  point  of  view,  Italy  created  a  wrong 
impression   among   us   through  the   persons   she   sent  us : 

aOne  of  the  most  distinguished  women  of  Italy  to-day,  the  Countess 
Pasolini,  assures  us  that  the  great  influence  still  exercised  by  women  in 
Italy  springs  from  their  approximating  more  closely  than  men  to 
fifteenth-century  ideas. 


INTRODUCTION  17 

professors  more  or  less  broken  down,1  exiles  more  or  less 
voluntary;2  impecunious,  ravenous,  and  pretentious  char- 
acters,3 not  very  philosophic  in  their  attitude  towards  their 
rivals :  all  those  also  who  rang  the  changes  on  the  honour 
we  had  had  in  beating  them,  the  Stoas,  Soardis,  Equicolas, 
wonderfully  assiduous  in  making  Louis  XII.  out  to  be  a 
second  Charlemagne  (in  those  days  Charlemagne  was  still 
a  Frenchman) ;  Caesar  Borgia  and  his  brilliant  retinue,  at 
whose  brief  passage  we  looked  on  in  contemptuous  un- 
concern. Because  Caesar  Borgia  did  not  take  our  fancy,  or 
because  some  of  us  had  met  light  women  on  the  highway 
to  Italy,  any  Italian  idea  appeared  to  us  a  false  one ;  we 
shut  ourselves  up  in  what  Pontanus,  Julius  II.,  and  other 
Italians  remaining  in  Italy  called  our  "  barbarism,"  and  as 
we  plumed  ourselves  on  our  logic,  we  only  abandoned  our 
antagonism  to  adopt  all  the  Italian  fashions  completely  and 
indiscriminately.  To  that  end,  Louis  XII.  had  to  oblige  by 
dying,  and  Francis  I.  by  reigning ;  so  at  least  Castiglione, 
the  master  of  the  new  school,  formally  declared  after  the 
accession  of  Francis.     So  it  actually  turned  out. 

Thus  women  are  queens ;  they  move  like  fairies.  "  It  is 
a  small  thing  to  say  of  a  woman  that  she  does  not  destroy 
the  flowers  on  which  she  sets  her  foot;   she  must  refresh 

1  We  may  say,  in  passing,  that  the  Italianism  of  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  usually  regarded  as  originating  with  the  Italian  expedition  of 
Charles  VIII. ,  really  goes  back  to  Louis  XI.  Louis  was  Italian  in  educa- 
tion and  tastes.     Italians  flocked  into  France  during  his  reign. 

a  Cornelius  Vitelli,  styled  Corythius  by  the  public,  came  to  France  in 
1482,  for  the  simple  reason  that  his  own  country  had  become  unsafe  for 
him.  We  have  not  many  details  about  him  or  about  his  colleague,  Girolamo 
Balbi,  a  pompous  and  quarrelsome  character.  A  third  Italian,  Fausto 
Andrelini,  made  his  appearance  in  1488,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Marquis 
of  Mantua.  Andrelini,  who  lived  very  comfortably  at  Paris  till  his  death 
in  1518,  had  no  other  effects  than  the  memories  of  a  little  love-affair,  which 
he  confided  to  us  in  three  books  of  verses,  his  "  pages  of  youth,"  as  we 
should  say  to-day.  Exiled,  penniless,  almost  naked,  but  a  poet,  he  was,  as 
soon  as  he  arrived,  petted,  adopted,  and  idolised,  the  favourite  of  Chancellor 
Guillaume  de  Rochefort  and  of  fortune. 

8  Fausto  Andrelini  was  the  object  of  incredible  adulation ;  Erasmus,  wise 
man,  simply  calls  him  "  divine,"  but  some  did  not  hesitate  to  proclaim  that 
"  he  alone  had  rendered  France  filled  instead  of  famishing,  cultivated  instead 
of  waste,  verdant  instead  of  barren,  Latin  instead  of  barbarous. "  One  of  the 
noblest  characters  of  the  time,  Guillaume  Bude,  actually  dedicated  to  him 
this  amazing  epitaph  :  * '  Here  lies  Fausto.  If  the  Fates  had  not  given  him 
to  us,  Gaeta  herself  would  not  have  been  more  barbarous  than  France." 
But  he  was  no  sooner  buried  than  everyone  regarded  him  as  a  knave. 

B 


18       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

them.  The  violets  should  not  droop  when  she  passes,  but 
burst  into  flower." x 

We  do  not  claim  that  this  system  is  perfect;  our  aim 
is  precisely  to  examine  with  the  utmost  care  its  strong  and 
its  weak  points  ;  but  it  is  certain  that,  to  begin  with,  by  the 
side  of  almost  all  the  illustrious  men  who  then  flourished  in 
such  numbers,  we  see  the  indispensable  woman  silhouetting 
herself,  not  as  tyrant  or  even  director,  but  as  mentor  and 
guide — as  mother,  rather,  since  she  brings  them  forth  into  the 
higher  life :  or,  still  better,  as  light  and  sun,  as  reinvigorating, 
vivifying  warmth:  according  to  the  saying  of  Schiller,  "Love 
is  the  sun  of  Genius."  "  Without  women,"  says  Castiglione, 
"  nothing  is  possible — neither  military  courage,  nor  art,  nor 
poetry,  nor  music,  nor  philosophy,  nor  even  religion  :  God  is 
only  truly  seen  through  them."  This  was  no  new  observa- 
tion :  Solomon  had  already  said  the  same  thing ;  but  we 
must  believe  there  were  new  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from 
it,  since  men  hoped  to  find  in  it  the  answer  to  that  vexed 
question  of  happiness  which  has  been  put  in  vain  since  the 
foundation  of  the  world. 

To  realise  how  women  transformed  themselves,  we  must 
follow  their  example  and  open  our  minds.  They  had  the 
courage  so  to  do  :  they  looked  life  fairly  in  the  face — with 
their  woman's  e37es,  it  is  true,  fine,  subtle,  and  complex ; 
they  looked,  and  often  they  did  not  really  understand 
their  own  impressions,  vivid,  and  rather  strong  than  clearly 
defined.  Often,  also,  under  the  impulse  of  these  impressions, 
they  acted  in  the  genuine  woman's  way,  with  tricks  and 
reservations,  evading  the  consequences  of  their  own  theories, 
going  round  the  obstacle  they  advanced  to  attack  in  front. 
Their  achievements  and  thoughts  are  difficult  to  determine. 
We  cannot  here,  as  in  an  ordinary  history,  be  satisfied  with 
a  mere  string  of  facts ;  we  must  play  the  chemist,  analyse 
these  various  and  complex  elements,  and  seek  to  evolve  a 
general  formula. 

That  formula  is  this  :  to  live,  that  is,  to  love  life,  to  attain 
a  mastery  of  life  without  allowing  it  to  crush  or  dominate 
us.  The  attainment  of  this  result  is  well  worth  the  trouble 
of  deciphering  a  few  women's  hearts,  even  though  the  hand- 
writing should  be  less  clear  than  our  ordinary  manuscripts. 
In  those  days  they  sincerely  studied  to  love  life ;  they  loved 

'John  Rusk  in. 


INTRODUCTION  19 

it,  rejecting  all  negations  and  obstructions,  all  that  over- 
whelms and  paralyses,  scouting  death  itself!  Instead  of 
yielding  to  scepticism  in  regard  to  things,  they  wished  to 

Eush  love  to  the  stage  of  Stoicism,  to  lift  the  heaviest 
urdens,  to  gaze  upon  the  star  of  consolation  which  speaks 
to  us  of  love  eternal. 

Every  woman  will  begin  with  her  own  redemption.  She 
is  at  first  thrown  out  into  the  world  while  still  a  child, 
almost  in  childish  innocence :  very  soon  rigorous  duties, 
material  and  oppressive  in  character,  seize  upon  her :  she  is, 
so  to  speak,  battered  and  rolled  out  by  very  rough  forces — 
the  firm  authority  of  her  husband,  the  idea  of  obedience,  the 
trials  of  motherhood,  fruitful  in  joys,  but  also  in  hardships 
and  cares.  Whilst  her  will  is  annihilated  and  enslaved,  and 
her  heart  often  remains  an  undiscovered  country,  she  assists 
with  pain  and  disgust  at  the  downfall  of  her  flesh — that 
flesh  which  has  become  the  abode  of  pain,  a  body  of  death, 
to  give  birth  to  life. 

How  is  the  sudden  thrill  brought  about,  turning  the  dull, 
torpid  larva  into  the  bright  butterfly?  How  do  women  succeed 
in  drawing  from  this  essentially  human  condition  something 
of  the  divine,  passing  from  physical  production  to  spiritual 
production  ?  These  above  all  are  the  questions  we  must 
seek  to  determine. 

It  must  not  be  expected  that  we  shall  present  to  our 
readers  fair  barristers,  or  engineers,  or  professional  scholars, 
still  less  pedants.  No ;  these  ladies  were  simply  modest 
women,  who  took  their  share  in  the  humblest  duties  of 
everyday  life,  but  discovered,  apart  from  charity  in  the 
material  sense,  the  absolute  necessity  of  another  charity, 
moral  charity  for  moral  and  spiritual  penury,  for  those 
destitute  of  happiness,  so  numerous  and  found  everywhere, 
even  within  the  walls  of  the  Louvre. 

If  they  accomplished  a  revolution,  it  was  a  peaceful  and 
internal  one.  They  piled  up  no  barricades,  issued  no 
manifestos,  launched  no  declaration  of  their  rights  as  women 
and  citizens.  Though  the  laws  were  not  generally  favour- 
able to  them,  they  demanded  no  amendment  of  the  laws ; 
the  same  magistrates  continued  as  in  the  past  to  deliver  the 
same  judgments  from  the  same  benches,  politicians  still  made 
their  fortunes,  ploughmen  still  followed  the  plough, 
engineers  continued  to  construct  bridges  and  make  roads, 


20       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

notaries  to  scan  the  cause-li«t*.  Nothing  was  changed,  in 
appearance,  in  the  material  course  of  the  world,  except  that 
a  moral  power  had  come  into  being,  and  that  women,  like 
the  goddesses  of  happiness  painted  by  Nattier,  under  the 
cloak  of  indifference  had  taken  into  their  keeping  a 
mysterious  urn,  whence  life  seemed  to  gush  in  a  spontaneous 
stream,  without  the  help  of  judges,  engineers,  or  notaries, 
yet  continually  sending  out  the  current  essential  to  the 
sweetness  and  fruitfulnesa  of  the  world. 


BOOK  I.      FAMILY  LIFE 
CHAPTER  I 

MAERIAGE 

There  are  two  ways  of  dealing  with  the  heart  of  a  woman. 
You  may  have  confidence  in  it,  believe  in  it,  regard  it  as 
a  real  element  of  strength  and  happiness,  uplift  and 
develop  it,  touching  it  then  to  fine  issues  in  love,  religion, 
philosophy.  These  are  the  lines  on  which  the  modern 
world  proceeds.  Or  you  may  treat  it  as  a  frail  organ  of  the 
body,  unruly,  incapable  of  good;  you  may  bind  it  down, 
early  and  with  due  care,  with  all  sorts  of  reasonable  chains, 
the  chief  of  which,  marriage,  will  keep  it  fast  prisoned,  and 
reduce  it  to  nothingness  and  oblivion.  This,  of  course,  was 
the  system  of  former  days. 

Singularly  enough,  these  two  systems,  contrary  as  they 
are,  spring  from  precisely  the  same  practical  starting-point, 
which  indeed  remains  the  sole  point  of  contact  between 
them :  the  principle,  namely,  that  marriage  and  love  are 
distinct,  and  must  neither  be  confused  nor  blended. 

To  Battista  Spagnuoli  of  Mantua,1  poet  and  monk,  in  the 
solitude  of  his  cloister,  marriage  shone  with  a  rosy  light. 
Cornelius   Agrippa,2  with  his  utilitarian  and   paradoxical 

J[The  most  prolific  and  popular  eclogue  writer  of  the  fifteenth  century 
(1436-1516). 

"  As  the  moste  famous  Baptist  Mantuan, 
The  best  of  that  sort  since  Poetes  first  began." 

— Alexander  Barclay. 
Erasmus  went  so  far  as  to  match  him  with  Virgil.  ] 

2[The  celebrated  cabalistic  philosopher  (1486-1535).  He  stayed  for  a 
time  with  Dean  Colet  in  London.  He  wrote  o  book  De  Nobilitate  feminei 
8exu8.~\ 

21 


22        THE   WOMEN   OF   THE   RENAISSANCE 

mind,  regarded  it  as  a  compulsory  conscription  of  the 
German  type,  with  no  possible  exemptions,  or  almost  none, 
and  fancied  that  if  men  would  but  go  in  quest  of  a  pretty 
woman  instead  of  being  so  much  absorbed  with  the  pro- 
prieties and  the  main  chance,  the  result  would  prove  far 
more  satisfactory.  With  the  exception  of  these  two,  and 
a  few  more  or  less  ingenuous  or  eccentric  people  like  them, 
no  one  believed  in  the  utility  or  the  possibility  of  love  in 
marriage.  Caviceo's  romance  II  Peregrino  was  considered 
sheer  perversity,  for  after  innumerable  intrigues  and  ad- 
ventures it  ends — how  ?  With  wedding  bells !  So  that, 
according  to  Caviceo,  marriage  was  to  turn  out  a  romance  of 
cloak  and  sword ! l 

It  was  universally  agreed  that  no  idea  could  be  more 
absurd,  less  practical,  more  detestable,  more  immoral  even. 
Marriage  was  a  transaction,  an 'establishment,'  a  business  part- 
nership, a  grave  material  union  of  interests,  rank,  and  social 
responsibilities,  sanctified  by  the  close  personal  association 
of  the  partners.  To  insinuate  an  idea  of  pleasure  was  to  rob 
it  of  its  noble  and  honourable  character,  and  to  drag  it  down 
into  the  mire  of  sensuality.  To  mingle  with  it  a  physical 
suggestion  was  to  degrade  it;  to  mingle  with  it  love,  the 
absolute,  great  enthusiasms  of  heart  or  intellect,  was  to  lay 

aAn  extract  from  the  marriage  of  Peregrino  will  give  an  idea  of  the 
Romance  (Book  I.,  cap.  i.,  p.  32) : 

"  There  standing  and  awaiting  the  wished-for  end,  I  heard  the  voice  of  a 
minister  of  Jupiter,  who,  regarding  both  of  ub,  thus  spake :  '  Peregrino, 
and  you  Geneva,  are  you  clear  and  free  from  every  manifest  or  secret  bond?' 
'  We  are  free,  nor  any  whit  bounden?' — Minister :  '  Are  you  not  conjoined 
in  affinity  ? '  Peregrino  and  Geneva :  '  Naught  in  affinity,  and  little  in 
amity  !  Minister :  '  Have  you  promised  marriage  or  betrothal  to  any  other 
man  or  woman  ? '  Peregrino  and  Geneva :  •  No,  never.'  Minister :  '  Are 
you  by  common  consent  disposed  to  celebrate  this  present  holy  sacrament 
of  matrimony  ?  Peregrino  and  Geneva:  '  We  wish  it  heartily  and  in  faith.' 
Minister:  'Thee,  woman,  give  I  to  him,  and  Peregrino  will  put  on  the  ring.' 

**  Having  done  his  bidding,  as  it  is  the  wont,  we  sat  ourselves  down," 
and  a  tender  conversation  ensues  between  the  two  spouses. 

**  O  matchless  eloquence  !  "  cries  Peregrino,  "  0  thrice  lucky  hour  !  0 
blessed  day  !  0  my  hope  in  the  sovran  guerdon  vouchsafed  to  me  !  With 
thee,  sweet  my  dame,  love,  and  gentleness,  and  discretion,  and  prudence 
have  their  habitation,  in  thee  every  good  thing  doth  lie  hid.  Thou  art  very 
music,  of  all  discords  the  harmony.  In  all  parts  I  find  thee  whole  and 
perfect.  Thou  art  abundant  in  all  humanity  and  sweetness,  and  in  thy 
making  the  lord  and  maker  of  heaven  hath  created  the  true  copy  and 
sovran  revelation  of  all  things."  The  couple  dream  their  souls  away  in 
these  platonic  effusions.  The  bride  is  bedded  there  and  then,  and  the 
author  omits  no  detail.  The  sun  is  already  high  when  a  young  maid- 
servant ventures  to  come  in  and  light  a  tire  of  twigs. 


MARRIAGE  23 

up  for  oneself  disasters,  or  at  least  certain  disappointment. 
"  Love-matches  turn  out  badly  quite  as  often  as  arranged 
marriages."  A  romance  lasts  a  week,  the  reality  for  a 
lifetime.  No  passion  can  survive  the  humdrum,  the 
monotony,  the  deadweight  of  matrimonial  experience  :  and 
what  marriage  can  hold  out  against  passion  ?  Heart 
freedom,  the  storms,  raptures,  revulsions  to  be  anticipated 
on  all  sides — what  amalgamation  is  possible  between  these 
and  the  peaceful  domestic  life  which  is  looked-to  to  furnish 
forth  a  very  solid,  united,  and  well-ordered  existence  ?  A 
certain  equality  is  the  rule  of  passion :  what  it  demands  is  a 
perfect  union  between  two  persons  who  are  mutually 
attracted  and  whom  there  is  nothing  to  keep  apart.  What 
would  become  of  married  life  under  these  conditions,  with- 
out some  directing  authority,  without  one  to  give  law  to  the 
other  ?  In  regard  to  marriage,  the  time-honoured  principle, 
rigorous  though  protective,  was  this:  the  husband  ought 
always  to  take  the  helm,  imbecile,  madman  or  rake  though 
he  be :  woman  is  born  to  obey,  man  to  command. 

Wedlock  then  is  good  solid  household  bread,  not  by  any 
means  cakes  and  ale.  It  is  the  modest  squat  suburban  villa 
in  which  you  eat  and  sleep:  passion  is  a  church-spire 
piercing  the  sky — the  spire  we  see  high  above  our  smoky 
roofs,  whence  on  Sundays  and  festivals  our  ears  are  greeted 
with  the  sound  of  bells. 

To  try  to  import  passion  into  marriage  is  like  trying  to 
pack  a  cathedral  into  one's  bedroom. 

And  so  marriage  is  to  retain  its  actual  character  as  a 
simple,  natural  function  of  the  physical  life,  like  eating  and 
drinking :  the  husband  a  domestic  animal,  presented  to  the 
woman  by  the  usages  of  society,  the  accident  of  birth,  and 
the  terms  of  the  bargain.  There  is  no  reason  for  choosing 
him  except  in  so  far  as  he  fulfils  these  conditions.  Do 
women  choose  their  family  affections  ?  Do  they  select 
their  father,  brother,  relatives?  The  husband  also  is  a 
relative,  a  partner,  to  whom  every  possible  duty  is  owing 
except  that  of  love.  The  woman's  duty  to  him  is  to  keep 
house  for  him,  present  him  with  children,  nurse  him  in 
sickness,  and  regard  his  liberty  as  sacred. 

In  short,  at  whatever  point  of  view  one  placed  oneself, 
marriage  excluded  every  idea  of  personal  fancy ;  indeed,  of 
all  the  contracts  of  life,  marriage  was  the  least  tolerant 


24       THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

of  any  such  idea.  Its  traditional  character  as  a  business 
transaction  no  one  would  have  dreamed  of  contesting. 

So  far  as  the  woman  was  concerned,  the  practical  conse- 
quences of  this  principle  were  very  simple.  It  was  not  for 
her  to  seek  a  husband,  but  merely  to  accept  the  man  whom 
fate,  that  is  to  say,  Providence,  had  destined  for  her. 
Nothing  was  more  ridiculous  than  here  and  there  to  find 
some  portionless  girl,  or  one  who,  like  Mademoiselle  de 
Clermont,  was  no  longer  in  her  first  bloom,  waxing  senti- 
mental and  speaking  with  a  sigh  of  the  "unaccustomed 
pleasure  "  of  loving  the  man  one  married.  "  This  pleasure," 
she  says,  raising  her  eyes  to  heaven  like  a  virgin  martyr, 
"  if  it  sets  at  nought  human  wisdom,  is  inspired  by  wisdom 
from  on  high ;  so  fine,  so  exquisite  must  it  be,  that  of  a 
truth  it  is  keener  than  sorrow  at  the  loss  of  the  loved  one — 
a  commonplace  and  everyday  sorrow."  Whereupon,  what- 
ever sympathy  may  have  been  inspired  by  Mademoiselle  de 
Clermont's  misfortune,  her  friends  cannot  help  smiling: 
"  So  you  mean  to  say,"  they  exclaim,  "  that  a  woman  has 
more  pleasure  in  the  embraces  of  her  husband  than  pain  at 
seeing  him  slain  before  her  eyes  ! " 1 

The  idea  that  a  young  girl  should  submit  passively  to  be 
married  was  almost  the  only  one  on  which  there  was 
complete  agreement.  Everyone  was  thoroughly  convinced 
that  in  adopting  any  other  course  she  would  almost  invari- 
ably be  committing  a  folly  sure  to  bring  repentance.  If 
young  and  unsophisticated,  she  would  allow  herself  to  be 
lured  and  snared  by  mere  illusions  from  which  there  would 
be  a  speedy  awakening;  if  she  had  lost  something  of  her 
youth  and  innocence  things  were  still  worse,  for  then  she 
inevitably  said  and  thought  and  did  ridiculous  things,  like 
poor  foolish  Mademoiselle  de  Clermont.  A  spinster  of 
twenty-five  or  thirty,  seized  with  a  yearning  for  marriage,2 

1  [The  quotation  is  taken  from  the  Heptameron,  Tale  40.  There  the 
lady  is  named  Nomerfide,  whom  the  author  identifies  with  a  certain 
Mile  de  Clermont.] 

2  "  Anna:  The  maiden  invokes  with  all  her  prayers  the  sweets  of  wedlock, 
and  yet  with  the  first  amorous  intoxication  begin  the  woes  of  the  conjugal 
bed ;  the  woman  is  scarce  nestled  upon  the  heart  of  the  man  than  with 
one  consent  they  long  for  separation.  Phyllis  :  Anna,  little  it  recks  me 
that  thou  decriest  the  bonds  of  wedlock  and  the  crabbed  sour  race  of 
men  ;  my  heart  is  a-fire  with  love  and  I  am  tormented  with  thirst  for 
marriage.  ...  I  deem  it  better  far  to  marry  betimes  ;  wedlock  is  a 
refuge  where  modesty  may  shelter  herself." — (J.  Cats,  pp.  6,  7,  16.) 


MARRIAGE  25 

would  be  subject  to  attacks  o(  mental  vertigo  springing 
rather  from  vanity  than  from  love ;  one  could  believe  her 
capable  of  the  veriest  follies  and  the  most  surprising  *yS* 
judgments.1  That  was  the  opinion  of  all  serious  women,  i 
from  Louise  of  Savoy  to  Anne  of  France,2  whether  they 
were  of  matter-of-fact  intellect,  spiritual  in  their  affections, 
or  somewhat  wayward  in  their  imagination.  The  whole 
mechanism  of  life  exemplified  this  fundamental  principle : 
a  young  girl  should  have  "  no  choice,  ambition,  or  wish  of 
her  own ;  "  experience,  failing  God  and  the  Law,  proves 
to  girls  the  necessity  of  discretion,  and  of  not  marrying  to 
please  themselves;  their  marriage  should  be  left  to  their 
relatives,  or  in  default  of  relatives,  to  their  friends."  3 

Very  frequently,  the  "best"  marriages  were  negotiated 
by  intermediaries  more  or  less  obliging,  relatives  or  friends. 
Princes  and  princesses  were  married  through  the  good 
offices  of  diplomatists.  Indeed,  ladies  and  gentlemen  of 
the  Court  did  quite  a  respectable  trade  in  match-making, 
for  a  consideration. 

But,  after  all,  the  task  of  marrying  his  daughter  was 
essentially  and  especially  one  for  the  father. 

For  the  most  part,  the  father  would  be  only  too  glad  to 
wash  his  hands  of  the  business.  In  every  case  he  was  in  a 
hurry  to  bring  matters  to  a  head,  and  believed  that  in 
losing  no  time  he  was  acting  in  the  interests  of  his  child. 
She  was  to  belong  wholly  to  another  household,  since  it  was 
a  woman's  lot  to  belong  to  her  husband,  aod  so  it  was  well 
for  her  to  enter  upon  her  new  life  as  early  as  possible, 
before  she  kad  formed  ideas  of  her  own,  and  at  an  age  when 

1  Heptameron,  Tale  21. 

2  [As  these  royal  ladies  are  constantly  cited  in  subsequent  pages,  the 
reader  will  allow  us  to  remind  him  once  for  all  of  their  relationships. 
Louise  of  Savoy  was  the  wife  of  Charles,  Count  d'Angouleme,  cousin- 

ferman  of  Louis  XII.,  and  the  mother  of  Francis  I.  and  of  Margaret  of 
'alois.  She  was  a  passionate  and  masterful  woman  and  completely  ruled 
her  son,  and  her  greed  and  intriguing  spirit  brought  disaster  upon  France. 
Anne  of  France,  also  known  as  Anne  of  Beaujeu,  was  the  eldest  daughter 
of  Louis  XL,  and  wife  of  Pierre  II.  of  Bourbon.  She  was  virtual  ruler  of 
France  during  the  first  eight  years  of  the  reign  of  her  brother  Charles  VIII. : 
see  further  Book  III.,  chapter  i.  She  is  connected  with  English  history  in 
so  far  as  it  was  largely  her  money  that  financed  Henry  of  Richmond's 
successful  enterprise  against  Richard  III.] 

3 No  law  in  the  world  had  yet  authorised  them  to  marry  "without  the 
knowledge,  advice,  and  consent  of  their  fathers  "  (Rabelais). 


26        THE   WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  paternal  household  would  not  yet  have  set  its  stamp 
indelibly  upon  her. 

In  this  respect  the  betrothals,  the  "marriages  for  the 
future" — marriages,  that  is,  solemnised  in  infancy  for  future 
consummation — were  of  great  service,  and  the  higher  the 
position  occupied  in  the  social  scale,  the  earlier  such  mar- 
riages were.  Kings  have  even  been  known  to  marry  their 
daughters  two  days  after  birth,  but  such  a  compact,  it  is 
true,  was  in  the  end  declared  by  the  lawyers  to  be  im- 
moral and  hardly  serious.  Indeed,  later  on,  when  the  time 
for  carrying  out  the  bargain  came,  some  princes  and  prin* 
cesses  felt  constrained  to  protest  against  this  arbitrary 
disposal  of  their  persons.  Happily,  such  engagements  were 
not  of  the  most  stable  kind,  and,  often  enough,  political 
considerations  were  sufficient  to  upset  them  before  any  harm 
was  done.1 

1  The  good  Anne  of  France,  married  to  a  husband  much  older  than  herself,. 

had  in  her  life  a  romance  which  has  escaped  notice.     She  was  fond  of 

her  first  fiance: 

"  Le  credit  due  de  Calabre,  fame, 
En  Vespousant  luy  donna  ung  aneau, 
Non  de  grant  pris ;  mais  si  fut  il  am6 
De  par  la  dame  et  plus  chier  estime 
Qu'or  ny  argent,  ne  bague,  ne  joiau 
Qu'elle  garda,  mieulx  que  plus  riche  et  beau, 
Jusque  a  la  mort,  e'est  verite  patente..." 

["  Calabria's  foresaid  duke,  a  prince  of  fame. 
Plighted  his  troth  and  gave  his  bride  a  ring, 
Of  no  great  price,  I  wot,  but  yet  the  dame 
Loved  him  so  dear,  so  high  esteemed  his  name 
As  never  gold  nor  any  precious  thing, 
Silver  nor  gem,  did  her  more  pleasure  bring, 
Until  her  death.     'Tis  very  truth  I  telL"] 

The  duke  died  six  years  after  the  betrothal, 

"  Qui  fust  ung  deul  qui  bien  tost  ne  passa, 
Mais  grefvement  poingnit  et  trepersa 
Le  noble  cueur  de  la  jeune  espousee. 
Par  quoy,  tost  fust  la  chose  disposee 
Qu'aultre  mari  prendroit  notable  et  bon, 
Ung  sien  prochain,  feu  Pierre  de  Bourbon." 

["  And  'twas  a  sorrow  that  not  soon  did  pass, 
But  smote  fell  sore  and  heavily,  alas  ! 
The  noble  heart  of  this  young  winsome  bride. 
Nathless,  ere  yet  her  brimming  tears  were  dried, 
Another  mate  was  found  her,  good  and  high, 
Pierre  de  Bourbon,  of  her  own  family."] 


MARRIAGE  27 

In  distinguished  families,  betrothal  was  by  no  means 
unusual  at  the  age  of  two  or  three.  At  this  tender  age 
Vittoria  Colonna1  was  betrothed  to  the  Marquis  of  Pescara. 

Consummation  usually  took  place  at  the  age  of  twelve. 
That  was  a  favourite  age  with  the  husbands ;  though,  accord- 
ing to  the  best  judges,  fifteen  was  the  age  when  the  physical 
charms  were  at  their  best,  and  the  soul  was  most  malleable 
— a  view  dating  as  far  back  as  Hesiod  and  Aristotle. 
Tiraqueau,2  the  friend  of  Rabelais,  vaunts  his  exploit  in 
having  wedded  a  girl   of  ten.     In   vain   did   the  French 

But  the  princess  clung  to  the  ring  of  her  former  lover,  symbol  of 
m  Loyalle  amour  dont  estoit  anoblie... 
...  En  cest  aneau  que  luy  avoit  done 
Son  amy  mort,  voullut  Pierre  espouser." 

["  Of  loyal  love's  ennobling  influence. 

And  with  this  ring,  gift  of  her  lover  dead, 
Would  she  her  husband  Pierre  de  Bourbon  wed,"] 

in  order  to  preserve  the  memory  of  him  whom  God,  in  his  unfathomable 
designs,  had  seen  fit  to  take  from  her — 

"  Pour  petit  cueur,  d'une  jeune  pucelle, 
Bien  garde  est  d'amour  honneste 
Cest  quant  jamais  ne  varie  ou  chancelle..." 

— Poeme  inidit  de  La  Vauguyon. 

["  To  the  sweet  guileless  heart  of  tender  maid 
'Tis  surety  of  a  chaste  and  noble  love 
That  changeth  never,  nor  will  ever  fade. "] 

The  princess  was  as  pure  a  woman  as  any  of  whom  we  have  any  account, 
but  the  author  dwells  on  this  innocent  romance  in  order  to  keep  her 
memory  alive  in  the  hearts  of  lovers. 

1  [Vittoria  Colonna  (1490-1547)  was  the  most  illustrious  member  of  an 
old  and  illustrious  Roman  family  said  to  derive  its  name  from  the  column 
to  which  Christ  was  bound  for  His  scourging.  At  the  age  of  seventeen 
she  married  the  Marquis  of  Pescara,  and  when  he  died  of  wounds  received 
at  Pavia  (1525)  she  refused  many  offers  of  marriage,  and  devoted  herself  to 
literature  and  works  of  piety.      She  wrote  poems  in  imitation  of  Petrarch.  ] 

2  [Tiraqueau  was  the  learned  and  genial  seneschal  of  Fontenoy  who 
released  Rabelais  from  the  tender  mercies  of  the  Franciscans,  for  which 
kindness  he  was  eulogised  in  Pantagruel.  He  had  a  large  family,  wrote 
many  books,  and  was  a  water-drinker ;  whence  an  anonymous  epigram 
which,  roughly  rendered  in  English,  reads  : 

Tiraqueau,  fruitful  as  the  vine, 

Got  thirty  sons,  but  drank  no  wine  ; 

Not  less  prolific  with  the  pen, 

Produced  as  many  books  as  men. 

And  had  not  water  sapped  his  strength, 

So  strenuous  a  man  at  length 

Had  filled  this  world  of  ours — who  knows? — 

With  books  and  little  Tiraqueaux.] 


28        THE   WOMEN  OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

physicians  implore  the  men  in  mercy  to  have  a  little  pati- 
ence, beseech  them  to  wait  at  least  until  the  fourteenth  year : 
they  demurred,  for  it  was  humiliating  for  a  father  to  have 
a  fifteen-year-old  daughter  on  his  hands :  at  sixteen  they 
would  have  called  it  a  catastrophe.  Champier,1  one  of  the 
gravest  of  writers,  proposed  that  after  the  age  of  sixteen 
young  women  should  be  provided  with  husbands  by  the  State, 
on  the  lines  of  Plato's  system.  Some  parents  betrayed  such 
haste  to  get  their  girls  off  their  hands  that  they  anticipated  the 
ceremony,  handing  them  over  to  their  husbands-elect  on  the 
strength  of  a  mere  promise  of  fidelity.  It  happened  at 
Milan,  among  the  Sforza  family,  that  a  mother,  becoming 
apprehensive,  refused  at  the  last  moment  to  part  with  her 
daughter  on  such  terms,  and  the  matter  ended  where  it 
should  properly  have  begun,  in  a  mutual  arrangement,  the 
young  lady  being  formally  placed  in  charge  of  her  husband 
to  save  appearances.  But  difficulties  like  these  were  always 
very  dangerous.  In  this  case  a  dispute  arose  in  regard  to 
the  dowry,  and  blood  waxed  hot ;  the  bridegroom  broke  off 
the  match,  and  took  to  wife  another  girl  of  the  same  family, 
a  child  of  ten,  whom  he  led  off  like  a  horse-dealer  returning 
with  a  filly  purchased  at  the  fair. 

Sometimes,  in  great  families,  the  girls  were  married  in 
advance  by  proxy.  Certain  wives  grew  to  womanhood 
without  even  making  their  husbands'  acquaintance. 

Urbino  is  not  a  great  way  from  Mantua,  but  the  diplo- 
matic agent  of  Urbino  found  it  necessary  to  urge  his  master, 
Francesco  Maria  della  Rovere,  a  youth  of  eighteen,  to  come 
on  a  visit  to  Leonora  Gonzaga,  whom  he  described  in  the 
most  alluring  terms  :  '  If  your  Excellency  saw  Madame 
Leonora,  and  the  Marquis's  little  mare,  you  would  see  the 
two  loveliest  things  I  ever  set  eyes  on.  I  do  not  think 
there  is  in  all  Italy  anyone  more  beautiful  or  virtuous  than 
Madame,  and  I  am  sure  no  king  or  prince  in  Christendom 
has  a  mare  to  match  his  Excellency's."  Ultimately  La 
Rovere  yielded  like  a  lord,  and  set  off  incognito  to  see  his 
wife,  a  girl  of  fourteen  years  and  a  half,  a  merry  little 
creature,  pretty,  well-bred,  and  a  pupil  of  the   historian 

X[A  famous  physician  of  Lyons  (1471-1540),  who  founded  the  College  of 
Medicine  there.  He  was  also  a  man  of  action  and  a  writer,  and  his  Nef 
den  dames  vertueuses  made  him  so  popular  with  the  ladies  that  he  had  to 
choose  back  ways  to  avoid  affectionate  mobbing.] 


MARRIAGE  29 

Sigismondo  Golfo.  She  was  presented  to  him  at  the  palace 
of  Mantua,  in  the  Hall  of  the  Sun.  He  stepped  forward  to 
greet  her,  and  embraced  her  in  the  most  correct  style  ;  then, 
on  Cardinal  Gonzago  remarking  loudly  that  this  was  a 
somewhat  frigid  demonstration,  he  went  forward  again, 
caught  Leonora  by  the  arms  and  head,  and  planted  a  becom- 
ing kiss  upon  her  lips.  And  then  they  sat  down  and  began 
chatting  on  the  topics  of  the  day,  notably  a  portrait  which 
had  just  been  finished. 

To  find  marriages  of  mutual  affection  it  would  have  been 
necessary  to  go  down  among  the  lower  ranks  of  the  people, 
in  country  places;  "good  matches  were  made"1  as  they 
danced  together  at  the  fair  or  at  the  village  merry-makings. 
But  in  the  great  world  the  future  spouses  were  subjected  to 
a  system  of  "  interviews."  Louis  de  la  Tre'moille,2  who  con- 
ceived the  eccentric  idea  of  escaping  the  infliction,  found  no 
other  means  than  to  introduce  himself  into  the  house  of  his 
prospective  wife,  Gabrielle  de  Bourbon,  disguised  and  under 
a  false  name,  as  they  do  in  the  comedies.  With  a  widow, 
perhaps,  a  little  less  ceremony  may  have  been  permissible, 
and  then — !  In  one  of  his  diplomatic  despatches  Bibbiena  3 
relates  with  much  humour  an  interview  of  this  sort : 

"  To-day  there  took  place  an  interview  between  the  Duke 
of  Calabria  and  the  divine  lady  of  Forli.4     Needless  to  say, 

1  "  Ainsi,  comme  j'ayme  m'amye, 
Cinq,  six,  sept  heures  et  demye 
L'entretiendray,  voyre  dix  at 
Sans  avoir  paour  des  in£disants, 
Et  sans  danger  de  ma  personne. " 

— Climent  Marot,  Dialogue  nouveau. 
[Thus,  as  I  love  my  doxy  dear, 
Five,  six,  seven  hours,  nay  full  ten  year 
I'll  court  her,  free  from  fear  of  slander  : 
And  scatheless — for  I  but  philander.] 
•[The  great  general  (1460-1525)  who  served  Charles  VIII.,  Louis  XII., and 
Francis  I.     He  conquered  Lombardy  for  Charles,  and  was  killed  at  Pa  via.] 
8  [See  Book  II.,  cap.  v.] 

*  [i.e.  Catherine  Sforza,  the  natural  daughter  of  Galeazzo  Sforza,  Duke  of 
Milan.  She  married  the  prince  of  Forli,  and  on  his  assassination  by  rebels 
was  thrown  into  prison  with  her  children.  But  hearing  that  Rimini  held 
out  for  her  against  all  assaults,  she  offered  to  carry  in  person  an  order  for 
its  capitulation.  On  arriving  before  the  city,  however,  she  bade  the  rebels 
lay  down  their  arms,  and  cowed  them  by  sheer  force  of  character.  Sht 
married  later  Giovanni  de'  Medici,  father  of  Cosimo.  She  defended  Forli 
against  Caesar  Borgia,  but  was  captured,  and  imprisoned  in  S.  Angelo ; 
thence  escaping,  she  retired  to  Florence,  and  soon  afterwards  died  there.  ] 


30        THE  WOMEN    OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

his  excellency  was  admirably  groomed  and  attired  in  the 
height  of  Neapolitan  fashion.  His  arrival  at  Bagnara  was 
welcomed  with  a  salute  of  musketry,  and  he  stayed  to 
dinner.  He  spent  two  hours  here  with  the  countess,  but  it  is 
patent  to  everyone  that  Feo 1  has  the  lady  well  under  his 
thumb.  His  excellency  took  his  leave  very  well  satisfied  ; 
but  he  was  only  moderately  taken  with  the  countess :  he 
told  me  that  they  joined  hands  very  gingerly,  that  he 
caught  some  winking  and  shrugs.  And  so  we  are  off  again, 
like  a  cricket  into  its  hole." 

The  final  scene  was  enacted  between  the  bride's  father 
and  the  bridegroom  or  his  parents.  It  was  remarkably  like 
any  other  sort  of  bargaining:  and  on  this  subject  an  old 
author  throws  a  charming  side-light :  he  urges  paterfamilias 
to  bestow  as  much  care  on  the  choice  of  a  son-in-law  as  on 
the  purchase  of  a  dog ! 

Ah !  if  the  wife  is  ever  to  become  an  instrument  of  love, 
there  is  no  sign  of  it  here!  Her  father  occupies  himself 
with  calculations  of  the  frankest  and  most  practical  kind ; 
he  has  lived  long  enough  to  understand  the  importance 
of  questions  of  money  or  worldly  interests,  and  on  this  score 
is  usually  more  than  a  match  for  his  son-in-law.  It  is  all 
very  well  for  the  preachers  to  extol  virtue  naked  and 
unadorned !  The  ideal  of  a  self-respecting  father  is  an 
eligible  elder  son,  heir  to  the  paternal  dovecot,  a  man  of 
leisure,  or  at  any  rate  a  "gentleman,"  in  other  words,  well- 
connected,  moving  in  good  society,  with  fine  friends.  Trade 
he  rather  looks  down  on :  he  has  seen  so  many  failures ! — 
so  many  substantial  traders  have  taken  to  setting  up  as 
■  merchant  gentlemen,"  like  the  Genoese,  and  have  come  to 
grief !  The  law,  on  the  other  hand,  is  extremely  popular ; 
in  these  days  there  is  nothing  better  than  an  alliance  with 
a  lawyer.  The  young  man  who  is  waiting  for  the  death  of, 
his  father  to  buy  an  appointment  in  the  judicature  may 
hold  up  his  head  in  any  company. 

Having  once  come  to  a  decision,  the  father  is  at  no  loss 
for  excellent  reasons  both  for  himself  and  others.  "He 
plays  the  guitar  well,  is  a  beautiful  dancer,  a  delightful 
singer,  an  excellent  writer,  a  good-looking  decent  fellow ! 
He  has  the  promise  of  a  post  as  Lord  High  Whipper-snapper 
to  the  King:  'tis  a  fine  thing,  a  place  at  Court !  given  oppor- 
1  The  countess's  lover. 


MARRIAGE  31 

tunity  and  a  friend,  and  your  fortune  is  made."  ..."  He 
is  a  sensible  fellow,  keeps  a  still  tongue  in  his  head,  answers 
you  only  with  nods  or  Italianate  shrugs."  ..."  Oh !  it's  all 
the  same  to  me.  I  am  a  gentleman  myself ;  here's  to  all 
gentlemen  !  Zounds !  but  'tis  expensive,  worse  luck  !  Come 
now,  I'm  as  good  a  gentleman  as  the  king.  I  don't  keep 
up  his  style,  to  be  sure,  but,  mark  you,  I  hunt  when  I 
like,  come  and  go  as  I  please,  bustle  about,  flog  and  bawl  at 
and  curse  my  people,  let  'em  know  I  am  master;  and  the 
hundred  or  two  serfs  I  have  under  me  daren't  stir,  egad, 
without  my  leave."  ..."  Tut  tut !  a  little  less  gilt  and 
a  little  more  gingerbread !  My  girl  marry  a  lord  and  then 
forsooth  go  footing  it  in  the  mud  to  canvass  Jacks-in-office 
for  a  flower-girl's  comer  or  some  twopenny -ha'penny  matter! 
A  fig  for  your  gentlemen ! "  .  .  .  and  so  on,  with  endless 
variations  on  the  same  theme  of  utilitarianism  pure  and 
simple.  Perhaps  the  girl  is  already  smitten  with  a  hand- 
some officer :  no  matter,  she  will  have  to  marry  some 
surveyor  from  Paris,  especially  if  he  holds  a  good  appoint- 
ment on  the  crown  lands,  because  that  provides  opportunities 
of  feathering  one's  nest.  In  such  matters  the  fathers  relent- 
lessly enforce  their  authority,  apparently  with  every  right. 
The  pleadings  in  a  criminal  case  reveal  to  us  the  Biblical 
Machiavelism  of  a  well-to-do  peasant  who  had  conceived  the 
idea  of  getting  gratuitous  service  for  ten  years  from  the 
candidate  for  his  daughter's  hand  and  fortune :  the  period 
expires,  and  then  the  father  with  singular  bad  faith  proposes 
to  exact  another  ten  years'  service ;  but  this  time  the  future 
son-in-law  rebels,  and  has  the  misfortune  accidentally  to 
kill  his  prospective  father-in-law,  and  this  brings  him  before 
the  courts. 

The  father's  egotism  was  only  equalled  by  that  of  the 
bridegroom  elect.  The  man  who  thought  of  marrying,  that 
is  to  say,  of  taking  a  wife,  was  a  man  of  some  thirty  years 
(Plato  proposed  thirty,  Aristotle  thirty-five) ;  he  had  enjoyed 
his  youth,  and  was  now  shutting  the  door  upon  it.  Why  ? 
Often  he  was  not  very  clear  himself:  because  the  time  had 
come,  he  supposed,  for  doing  what  everybody  did.  Celibacy 
was  not  the  vogue :  "  We  are  no  longer  in  the  age  of  the 
vestals,"  as  Egnatius1  excellently  said.     And  we  discover 

1  [Egnazio,  a  fellow-pupil  of  Leo  X. ,  teacher  of  eloquence  and  editor  of 
Ovid  and  Cicero,  etc.] 


32        THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

from  various  sources  that  the  religious  vocation  was  not 
very  well  understood,  even  among  girls.  Luckless  preachers 
had  to  toil  and  sweat  to  prove  that  virginity  was  no  crime, 
and  that  a  woman  might  quite  fittingly  prefer  the  ideal  of  a 
mystic  marriage  to  the  prospect  of  bearing  a  man's  yoke 
and  measuring  out  the  domestic  oil.  Erasmus  writing  to 
nuns  is  too  courteous  not  to  speak  of  angels  or  lilies  of  the 
valley,  but  in  his  heart  of  hearts  he  thinks  it  all  terribly 
old-fashioned,  and  has  not  the  slightest  belief  in  the  virginal 
theories  of  St.  Jerome.  With  still  greater  reason,  celibacy 
was  not  countenanced  beyond  a  certain  age.  Luther  very 
honestly  regarded  it  as  an  intolerable  burden,  contrary  to 
nature  and  the  custom  of  the  early  church.  "It  is  as 
impossible  to  do  without  women  as  without  meat  and 
drink."  And  so  a  man  took  a  wife  because  he  thus  ful- 
filled part  of  his  duty  as  a  healthy  animal;  he  married  because 
at  thirty  years  the  time  had  come  for  making  a  home  and 
begetting  a  family.  In  reality  a  man  married,  in  a  manner, 
impersonally,  rather  for  his  family  than  for  himself;  and  all 
that  he  desired  was  to  complicate  his  life  as  little  as 
possible  in  marrying,  to  be  able  to  preserve  his  tastes, 
habits,  hobbies,  without  the  incubus  of  a  partner. 

The  worst  feature  of  this  business  of  matrimony  was  that 
it  was  so  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  chance,  which  made 
almost  a  lottery  of  it,  and  it  would  have  been  much  more 
ridiculous  for  a  man  than  for  a  woman  to  yield  to  a  childish 
infatuation.  The  man  knew  nothing  of  the  girl  he  was 
espousing,  either  physically  or  morally.  He  merely  assumed 
some  likelihood  of  her  resembling  her  parents,  with  the 
result  that  he  devoted  special  attention  to  his  prospective 
mother-in-law;  she  was  the  woman  he  was  wedding.  A 
young  woman  without  relatives  to  serve  as  samples  and 
guarantees  was  at  a  discount  in  the  matrimonial  market. 
At  the  best,  it  is  always  a  leap  in  the  dark,  something 
like  a  step  into  death :  it  is  the  burial  of  the  past,  the  first 
sacrifice  of  one's  life  for  the  preservation  of  the  race;  the 
Stoic,  says  Cardan,  knows  whereabouts  he  is  at  his  mar- 
riage and  his  death.  A  man's  best  course  is  to  take  comfort 
beforehand,  to  fix  his  eyes  on  the  object  he  aims  at,  to 
reflect  that  the  reason,  the  mind  has  no  great  part  in  it,  and 
that  children  are  not  the  offspring  of  a  woman's  brain. 

Moralists  had  put  themselves  to  much  trouble  to  cheer 


MARRIAGE  33 

men  along  this  difficult  road,  and  to  provide  them  with  a 
series  of  test  questions  as  an  aid  to  matrimony.  They 
assured  a  man  that  he  might  be  quite  easy  in  mind  if  he 
simply  verified  eight  particulars  in  regard  to  the  girl  he 
proposed  to  marry :  physically,  her  age,  health,  maternal 
aptitudes,  beauty;  generally,  her  intelligence,  education, 
family,  and  dower.  Unhappily,  this  verification  was  not 
easy. 

Physically,  he  could  verify  nothing  but  the  young  lady's 
age;  for  the  rest,  the  physicians  advised  him  to  look  to 
her  figure  and  in  general  to  choose  the  best-grown  girl ; 
but  no  one  can  fail  to  see  how  vague  and  fallacious  was 
any  presumption  based  on  that!  True,  there  were  the 
attractions  of  her  features  to  judge  by  ;  but  those  were 
precisely  what  the  same  moralists  urged  him  to  distrust :  a 
serious  man,  they  said,  would  never  build  on  that  sand.  In 
married  life  striking  beauty  is  apt  to  pall,  you  come  to 
loathe  it,  and  a  pretty  woman  is  rarely  clever  enough  to 
bring  grist  to  her  husband's  mill — except  maybe  in  trade, 
when  she  serves  as  a  signboard  or  a  trade-mark.  Sensible 
men  preferred  plainness ;  it  was  only  widowers  or  wealthy 
dotards  who  gave  themselves  as  a  last  resource  the  luxury 
of  marrying  a  pretty  woman.  Poor  souls !  they  would  do 
better  to  think  of  their  rheumatism,  their  indigestion,  the 
dreadful  draughts !  Such  a  match  was  that  of  Madame 
Dixhomme,  a  very  sprightly  young  woman  well  known  in 
society,  who  bore  the  name  of  an  old  husband,  a  shining 
light  of  the  Parisian  bar,  who  might  have  been  her  father  ! 
There  is  no  help  for  it.  These  good  patriarchs  will  listen  to 
no  advice,  and  always  count  on  coming  off  well.  The 
world  is  content  to  smile,  and  to  look  on  their  attitude  as 
courageous,  not  to  say  heroic.1 

So  much  for  the  physical  aspect.  In  regard  to  moral 
principles,  there  was  one  that  was  firmly  established.  The 
man  who  was  bringing  himself  to  the  marrying  point  was 
haunted  by  the  spectre  of  feminine  independence ;  the  terror 
he  felt  in  anticipation  of  some  enforced  sacrifice  of  his  tastes 
or  whims  took  possession  of  him  and  dominated  every  other 
sentiment.  So  when  he  set  out  in  quest  of  a  young  wife,  he 
looked  for  one  in  his  own  rank  of  society,  on  his  own  level,  so 
that  she  might  have  nothing  to  hope  for  from  him,  nothing 

1  Heptameron,  Tale  25. 
C 


34       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

to  cast  in  his  face,  that  he  might  owe  her  nothing,  that 
she  might  have  no  pretext  for  riding  roughshod  over  him, 
but  might  resign  herself  quite  contentedly  to  play  second 
fiddle,  regarding  this  subordination  as  natural,  just  as  the 
ivy  gladly  embraces  the  asperities  of  the  wall  it  is  fixed  to 
The  husbands  wished  their  wives  to  take  pleasure  in  resigna- 
tion and  to  fancy  that  their  woes  were  the  source  of  true 
felicity.  The  first  condition  towards  attaining  this  end  was 
that  the  ladies  should  not  have  a  higher,  nor  even  a  lower 
station  in  society  to  look  back  on. 

In  a  fit  of  epicurism  dashed  with  respectability  you  marry 
your  cook,  thinking  you  are  securing  careful  attentions,  a 
good  table,  and  a  warm  bed !  Woful  mistake !  You  are 
wedding  a  fishwife,  who  will  treat  you  after  the  manner  of 
fishwives,  and  overwhelm  you  with  coarse  abuse :  she  will 
never  tire  of  telling  you  you  are  not  man  enough  for  her. 
You  would  not  find  it  much  more  pleasant  to  marry  a 
woman  a  little  too  much  above  you,  who,  at  the  critical 
moment,  would  hold  you  with  an  admirable  curtain  lecture, 
and,  instead  of  doing  her  wifely  duty,  would  discourse  to 
you  for  the  hundredth  time  on  the  splendid  matches  she  had 
declined,  the  rage  of  her  family,  your  poverty,1  and  so  forth. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  with  what  uneasiness  and  fatalism 
all  these  considerations,  not  to  mention  others,  fill  the  mind 
of  a  man  who  has  reached  the  age  of  official  paternity.  He 
hesitates  long,  and  makes  up  his  mind  at  last  with  his  eyes 
wide  open,  knowing  that  "  in  the  best  of  marriages  one  must 
expect  at  least  as  much  pain  as  pleasure."  Not  that  he 
would  maintain  that  marriage  is  a  mistake  for  men,  but  he 
does  think  that  "neither  joy  nor  felicity  has  part  or  lot  in 
such  brutishness."  He  asks  advice  from  one  and  another, 
and  always  runs  counter  to  it  Someone  tells  him  of  a  girl 
with  money — she  will  want  to  rule  the  roost ;  of  a  poor  girl 
— she  will  be  a  drag ;  a  pretty  girl — so  much  the  better  for 
his  neighbours ;  a  plain  girl — ugh  !  that  offends  his  suscepti- 
bilities. What  does  he  want,  then  ?  A  good  manager,  a 
strapping  well-built  wench :  if  he  talks  of  consulting  an 
expert,  he  is  referred  to  Triboulet ! 2  He  would  much  rather 
have  to  choose  a  cow. 

1  Heplameron,  Tale  25. 

*[The  Yorick  of  French  literature  :  see  Victor  Hugo's  Le  Roi  s'amtise. 
When  Panurge  has  vainly  sought  advice  from  everyone  else  on  the  momen- 


MARRIAGE  35 

It  is  in  this  frame  of  mind  that  he  at  last  makes  his 
decision.  If  in  later  years  he  attains  to  some  eminence  and 
is  tempted  to  write  his  memoirs,  this  business  of  his  mar- 
riage will  be  one  of  the  episodes  he  will  be  able  to  detail,  for 
his  own  justification,  with  perfect  composure. 

A  dispensation  of  Providence  was  often  necessary  to  bring 
him  to  the  point.  This  dispensation  manifested  itself  under 
the  most  diverse  forms.  The  learned  Tiraqueau,  of  whom  we 
have  already  spoken,  was  struck  one  day  with  the  fact  that 
the  Greeks  and  Romans  had  a  very  poor  opinion  of  celibacy, 
and  he  culled  from  Valerius  Maximus  especially  a  number  of 
convincing  proofs  on  this  head.  Whereupon  he  crossed  the- 
street  and  demanded  in  marriage  the  young  girl  who  lived 
opposite ;  he  found  that  her  name  was  Marie  Cailler,  that 
she  was  very  well-bred,  and  that  her  parents  were  anxious 
to  get  her  off  their  hands.  But  Tiraqueau  was  determined 
not  to  suggest  a  suspicion  that  a  man  of  his  stamp  felt  a  real 
need  of  marriage,  and  so  he  dedicated  to  his  father-in-law  and 
to  posterity  the  unparalleled  account  of  his  actual  motives. 

The  hand  of  Providence  was  sufficiently  revealed  in  the 
will  of  the  parents,  or  in  the  cash  of  an  uncle  from  whom 
one  had  expectations,  and  who,  not  having  himself  taken  the 
trouble  to  perpetuate  his  stock,  was  determined  that  the 
duty  should  be  undertaken  by  another. 

It  is  curious  enough  to  see  Michelangelo  in  this  role  of 
the  preachifying  uncle.  So  far  as  he  was  concerned,  he 
had  long  held  such  peculiar  ideas  about  marriage  that  he 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  At  a  time  when  he  had 
come  to  years  of  discretion  he  worked  himself  up  into  a  fine 
fury  of  indignation  against  his  brother,  who,  to  put  an  end 
to  an  old  and  vexatious  law-suit,  thought  of  marrying  the 
daughter  of  the  opposite  party.  Later,  however,  he  took  it 
into  his  head  that  the  name  of  Buonarotti  must  not  be 
allowed  to  disappear :  "  the  world  would  not  come  to  an  end, 
but  every  living  being  does  his  best  to  preserve  his  species." 
For  this  reason  his  nephew  was  to  marry.  But  marry  whom  ? 
Not  money,  said  the  uncle,  but  a  girl  of  good  stock  :  "  to  wed 
a  good,  well-bred,  healthy  woman,  is  to  do  a  good  day's 
work,"  and  to  assure  peace  and  quietness  at  home. 

tous  question,  '  to  marry  or  not  to  marry?'  he  tries  Triboulet,  who  sends 
him  to  consult  the  oracle  of  the  Divine  Bottle  (Rabelais,  Garganlua, 
Book  III.).     Triboulet  was  court  jester  to  Louis  XII.  and  Francis  I.] 


36       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

The  idea  of  a  good  day's  work  did  not  much  take  the 
young  man's  fancy:  the  prospect  of  a  dowry  was  more 
attractive.  But  the  dowry  Michelangelo  made  himself 
responsible  for,  provided  they  found  for  him  a  niece  who 
was  really  adaptable  and  likely  to  prove  a  good  wife.  A 
match  was  proposed,  but  after  dragging  on  for  a  time  the 
negotiations  fell  through,  to  be  resumed  and  to  fall  through 
again.  The  uncle  was  content  to  give  the  nephew  a  start, 
and  kept  himself  in  the  background,  though  he  was  all  the 
time  setting  the  bishop  of  Arezzo  at  work  in  the  matter. 
He  knew  that  the  distinguished  people  at  Florence  were  at 
that  time  in  sore  pecuniary  straits,  a  circumstance  at  which 
he  rejoiced,  for  it  might  be  expected  to  help  forward  his 
plans.  Ere  long,  however,  the  bishop  of  Arezzo  offered  a 
girl  who  was  no  beggar-maid  to  be  wed  for  charity. 

The  nephew's  hesitation  being  at  last  overcome,  he 
obtained  an  introduction  to  the  Guicciardini,  one  of  the 
principal  families  of  Florence,  rich  in  the  possession  of  two 
daughters.  All  went  so  well  that  the  good  uncle  was  soon 
exchanging  excellent  letters  with  the  girl's  father.  But  on 
the  very  first  occasion  when  serious  business  was  discussed, 
the  bridegroom  elect  discovered  with  dismay  that  the  style 
of  the  house,  which  indicated  a  respectable  fortune,  was  all 
a  vain  show.  Old  Guicciardini,  excellent  man,  was  very 
careful  to  avoid  a  scandal,  and  there  and  then  offered  his 
would-be  son-in-law  the  daughter  of  one  of  his  friends  the 
Ridolfi.  Kept  well  posted  in  these  various  incidents, 
Michelangelo  at  last  became  rather  bewildered;  but  to 
him  it  mattered  little  whether  his  nephew  espoused  the 
Ridolfi  or  the  Guicciardini  provided  it  was  one  of  the  two. 

Finally,  the  nephew  wedded  the  fair  Ridolfi  in  April, 
1553,  and  on  May  20th  he  poured  out  all  his  satisfaction  in 
a  letter  to  his  uncle.  Ravished,  enchanted,  and  overflowing 
with  thankfulness,  Michelangelo  despatched  the  promised 
dowry  with  a  present  of  jewellery.  In  April  of  the  follow- 
ing year  a  son  made  his  entrance  into  the  world  under  the 
name  of  Michelangelo  Buonarotti;  next  year  another  was 
expected,  and  a  third  the  year  after.  Michelangelo 
signified  his  approval  by  a  present  of  600  golden  crowns 
(about  £2000).     That  was  something  like  a  marriage ! 

But  Raphael,  a  man  of  the  world,  wedded  to  his  indepen- 
dence, took  a  far  less  simple  view  of  the  institution.     His 


MARRIAGE  37 

uncle,  a  worthy  canon,  never  spoke  to  him  of  a  dowry ;  a 
stroke  of  Raphael's  brush  was  worth  a  dowry  in  itself. 
Unhappily,  the  divine  poet  of  maternal  love,  the  exquisite 
interpreter  of  women,  weighed  and  digested  the  matter  like 
a  man  of  sense.  He  does  not  cease  to  thank  Providence,  he 
says,  that  he  has  refrained  from  wedding  any  of  the  ladies 
contemplated  up  to  the  present.  To-day  (1514)  he  may 
marry  brilliantly  if  he  likes ;  the  choice  is  open  to  him  :  a 
cousin  of  Cardinal  St.  Maria  in  Porticu,  offered  him  by  the 
Cardinal  himself — a  lovely  creature,  of  good  family,  with  a 
dower  of  3000  crowns,  or  even  more.  But  "he  is  in  no 
hurry  " ;  and  indeed,  that  is  the  sober  truth :  men  are  not  in 
a  hurry;  and  Raphael  never  married. 

So  it  was  quite  with  the  feeling  that  he  was  fulfilling  an 
impersonal  and  family  duty  that  a  man  ended  by  espousing 
a  woman  whose  attitude  was  as  impersonal  as  his  own. 
For  the  same  reason,  to  consecrate  the  nuptial  transaction 
and  give  it  due  importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  the 
marriage  was  surrounded  with  an  ever-increasing  ostenta- 
tion. The  opening  scene  was  as  imposing  and  brilliant  as 
the  subsequent  years  of  married  life  were  to  prove  sombre 
and  colourless. 

At  a  later  date  we  find  the  Calvinists  up  in  arms  against 
these  idle  gawds,  which  they  style  scandalous  worldliness,  a 
"villany."  Nevertheless  there  was  evidently  no  idea  of 
glozing  over  the  real  character  of  the  contract ;  but  aesthetic 
taste,  however  rudimentary,  insisted  apparently,  if  not  on 
idealising  the  contract,  at  least  on  beautifying  it. 

Up  to  the  solemn  moment  everything  has  been  transacted 
between  men.  The  young  woman  appears  on  this  great 
day  for  the  first  time  in  her  life.  If  she  has  been  brought 
up  according  to  the  old  method,  many  people  have  scarcely 
suspected  her  existence.  Unlike  her  husband,  who  is  taking 
a  step  backwards,  subsiding  from  youth  into  maturity,  she 
is  being  born  into  life.  There  she  is,  at  the  door  or  under 
the  porch  of  the  church,  standing  beside  her  husband, 
involuntarily,  with  no  desires  of  her  own,  passive — an 
offering,  as  it  were,  to  the  race.  In  this  strong  light  of 
publicity  she  alone  seems  a  little  ill  at  ease,  blushing  at  the 
exhibition,  agitated  at  this  unknown  something  which  the 
rest  are  so  joyfully  celebrating.  The  priest  comes  down 
the  nave,  just  as  at  funerals,  receives  the  young  couple's 


38       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

whispered  "I  will,"  sprinkles  them  lightly  as  they  stand 
with  a  little  lustral  water,  censes  them ;  and  then  the 
procession  is  formed,  to  wind  its  way  up  to  the  altar  where 
the  nuptial  benediction  mass  will  be  sung — a  long,  noisy 
procession,  ponderous,  gothic,  all  stiff  with  velvets,  monu- 
mental stuffs  and  gilded  draperies ;  thirty,  forty,  sometimes 
three  hundred  persons,  none  but  members  of  the  family ; 
but  in  these  circumstances  of  parade  and  pleasure  the 
family  becomes  extraordinarily  multiplied.  At  the  head  of 
the  procession,  buried  under  trappings  of  superb  finery 
representing  a  fortune,  the  little  bride  is  scarcely  visible ; 
she  is  for  all  the  world  like  the  clapper  of  a  bell.  And 
verily  under  that  golden  robe  there  is  after  all  nothing — 
but  a  woman. 

They  leave  the  church,  and  there  is  no  crush ;  the  sight 
attracts  only  a  few  curious  folk,  a  few  halt  and  blind :  in 
those  days  there  was  nothing  to  draw  the  overwhelming 
throng  without  which  no  modern  marriage  is  complete. 
And  the  procession  crawls  on,  displaying  through  the  town 
its  festal  finery  drawn  from  ancestral  coffers,  with  a  majesty 
which  may  perhaps  give  the  impression  of  an  official 
pageant,  but  nowhere  indicates  the  crowning  incident  in  a 
love-story.  All  is  significant  of  a  serious,  authentic,  arith- 
metical fact,  a  practical  and  substantial  fact,  a  performance 
got  up  for  the  honour  of  a  family. 

It  is  precisely  this  which  sends  a  thrill  through  all  who 
take  part  in  the  ceremony.  Under  these  huge  plumes  and 
massive  carcanets  there  vibrates  a  delirious  but  very  real 
joy — the  old  family  joy  in  pomp  and  circumstance,  this,  too, 
drawn,  as  it  were,  out  of  the  ancestral  coffers.  What  man 
is  there  who,  however  poverty-stricken  he  may  be,  dispenses 
with  magnificence  at  his  marriage  ?  Perhaps  this  is  the 
only  da}7 — or  rather,  the  only  period,  for  one  is  not  married 
in  a  day — when  he  will  know  what  luxury  is.  There  is 
a  truce  to  care ;  life  shows  a  countenance  all  joy  and 
geniality. 

In  the  rural  parts  of  France  the  company  only  rose  from 
table  to  sit  down  again,  or  to  dance  under  the  elms.  Deep 
drinking,  love,  quarrels,  broad  jests,  strange  customs,  such, 
for  instance,  as  the  jits  primae  noctis,  or  the  drinking- match 
traditional  with  the  country  lads — all  this  developed  a 
boisterous  gaiety.     The  bridegroom  alone  groaned  under  it, 


MARRIAGE  39 

for  among  the  middle  and  lower  classes  it  was  the  correct 
thing  to  invite  to  one's  wedding  as  big  a  crowd  as  possible. 
The  poor  man  spent  his  time  running  from  fiddler  to 
purveyor,  ruining  himself  in  presents  for  his  friends  and  the 
bridesmaids ;  he  was  expected  to  show  everyone  a  smiling 
face,  to  receive  his  guests,  have  a  word  for  all,  crack  jokes, 
be  at  everybody's  beck  and  call,  think  of  everyone  but 
himself,  lucky  if  at  an  odd  moment  he  could  snatch  a  morsel 
to  eat.  When  night  came  he  had  not  even  the  right  of 
taking  his  rest ;  ordeals  of  every  kind  lay  in  wait  for  him  ; 
and  in  the  morning  he  was  bound  to  go  on  laughing,  to 
receive  more  visits,  and  profess  himself  the  happiest  fellow 
in  the  world.  And  then  comes  the  turn  of  the  upholsterers 
and  house-furnishers. 

"  Happily,"  he  says,  "  one  doesn't  get  married  every  day." 
Divorce  will  never  number  him  among  its  supporters. 

Helysenne  de  Crenne,1  the  great  romance-writer,  sketches 
a  somewhat  analogous  picture  of  the  doings  in  the  great 
world. 

On  some  fine  sunny  morning,  when  the  birds  are  enlivening 
all  things  with  song,  the  groomsmen  set  out  in  procession 
to  fetch  the  bridegroom,  and  the  bridesmaids  to  escort  the 
bride.  She  arrives  in  a  blue  robe  adorned  with  pearls,  a 
diamond  coronet  on  her  head.  The  festivities,  extraordin- 
arily magnificent,  last  the  whole  day,  concerts  and  dances 
forming  part  of  them ;  the  men  hover  solicitously  about  the 
ladies;  some  of  them  get  up  a  tilting  match,  ironically 
inviting  the  bridegroom  to  enter  the  lists,  and  his  refusal 
lets  loose  a  flood  of  pleasantries. 

At  nightfall  the  couple  are  solemnly  bedded.  At  this 
moment,  in  France,  the  fun  is  only  just  beginning.  The  house 
seems  verily  bewitched :  not  a  bolt  catches,  not  a  window 
but  is  under  a  spell;  at  the  most  unexpected  moment  an 
avalanche  of  troublesome  visitors  bursts  into  the  nuptial 
chamber ;  the  couple  spring  out  of  bed ;  the  intruders  wax 
hilarious  on  the  slightest  pretext.  In  her  precipitation  the 
bride  has  perhaps  torn  a  little  rent  in  her  shift ;  a  court  is 
at  once  constituted  to  try  the  case,  and  we  may  imagine  the 
full-flavoured  jests  that  are  bandied  about,  becoming 
indeed  a  little  wearisome. 

a[Of  the  early  part  of  the  17th  century.     Her  chief  work  is  the  Angoisset 
douloureuaes  qui  procident  de  I' amour.] 


40        THE   WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

In  Italy  the  marriage  was  a  more  solemn  and  complicated 
affair.  The  law  indeed  was  compelled  to  intervene  with  a 
view  to  limiting  the  expenditure,  in  spite  of  which  certain 
Florentine  marriages  cost  some  £20,000,  without  reckoning 
the  presents — and  the  presents  made  a  heavy  item.  At  Venice 
the  witnesses,  sometimes  numbering  forty,  could  not  escape 
for  less  than  two  hundred  ducats  apiece.  The  marriage  set 
the  artistic  world  in  motion.  Men  of  letters  came  flocking- 
up  with  inflictions  in  the  shape  of  epithalamiuras,  more  or 
less  new,  descanting  in  Grecian  style  on  the  theme  "  is 
marriage  a  necessity  ? "  or  farragoes  of  pedantry,  crammed 
with  allusions  to  the  ancients,  full  of  names  like  Lycurgus 
and  Plato,  lauding  the  families  of  the  young  couple  to  the 
skies,  and  comparing  the  bride  and  bridegroom  to  Philip  of 
Macedon,  Mithridates,  Dido  ;  eclogues  were  rained  on  them, 
and  apologues,  and  declamations  in  Latin  verse.  All  these 
were  printed,  and  constituted  an  authentic  memorial  of  the 
event.  A  painter  of  repute  would  be  commissioned  to 
decorate  the  trunk  for  the  bride's  trousseau;  he  would 
depict  on  it  a  story  from  Scripture  or  mythology,  or  a  genre 
scene,1  and  this  formed  another  memorial,  often  charming 
and  always  worth  keeping.2 

In  the  pages  of  history  we  find  descriptions  of  so  many 
weddings  that  it  would  be  no  easy  matter  to  make  a 
selection.  King  Alfonso  of  Aragon,  hardly  serious  as  a 
husband  but  a  very  splendid  prince,  was  married  with 
a  magnificence  that  was  long  remembered.  On  the  shores 
of  the  sea,  the  glorious  sea  of  Naples,  tables  were  set  up  for 
a  company  of  thirty  thousand,  amid  fountains  running  wine 
and  pavilions  flashing  with  light.  In  the  neighbouring 
forest  a  hunt  was  organised  for  the  Court.  The  Neapolitans 
in  their  enthusiasm  invoked  the  sun  to  witness  that  nothing 
more  beautiful  could  ever  be  seen. 

The  wedding  of  Eleanor  of  Toledo  to  the  Duke  of  Florence 
in  1539  is  described  with  abundant  details  in  a  little  book 

1 A  large  number  of  these  cassoni  exists.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  that 
can  be  mentioned  represents  the  story  of  Esther  (Chantilly  gallery).  The 
author  possesses  one  that  represents  Filippo  Maria  Visconti  before  the 
Emperor. 

2  Two  days  after  his  marriage,  Girolamo  Riario  sent  his  bride  a  casket 
containing  diamond  necklaces  and  robes  of  gold  brocade  and  of  velvet, 
embroidered  with  fine  pearls ;  one  robe  alone  carried  nearly  3000  pearls ; 
there  was  also  a  purse  of  gold,  silver-embroidered  girdles,  etc. — (Pasolini.) 


MARRIAGE  41 

compiled  for  the  occasion.  There  you  may  read  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  triumphal  arches,  the  statues,  the  dramatic 
performances,  and  find  the  complete  text  of  the  stanzas, 
the  madrigals  and  the  comedy.  The  music  was  printed 
separately. 

One  may  read  also  the  details  given  by  M.  Molmenti  of 
the  dazzling  pageants  at  Venice :  the  official  proclamation 
in  the  court  of  the  Doge's  palace,  the  prolonged  and 
sumptuous  preparations  for  the  festive  entertainments,  the 
canals  en  fete,  the  facades  of  the  palaces  hung  with  bunting, 
the  gondoliers  in  red  silk  hose  skimming  the  waves,  the 
armies  of  servants  in  gold-embroidered  liveries,  the  bonfires, 
the  fireworks,  the  fifers  and  trumpeters,  the  serenades, 
dramatic  performances,  balls,  banquets  with  lavish  displays 
of  gold  plate  and  decorations  flashing  with  all  the  colours  of 
the  rainbow — it  is  all  like  a  dream ;  even  Veronese  would 
have  despaired  of  painting  the  thousand  extravagances  of 
this  feverish  life. 

But  nowhere  do  we  catch  sight  of  the  woman :  it  is  the 
man  who  predominates  and  plays  the  leading  part.  Sud- 
denly the  curtain  falls.  The  girl  has  become  a  wife,  and 
then  what  crudities !  what  realism !  even  in  those  circles 
where  delicacy  is  as  a  rule  pushed  to  the  utmost  limits  of 
refinement. 

Details  on  so  intimate  a  matter  appear  to  elude  the 
historian.  But  though  confidences  are  lacking,  we  may 
surmise  the  real  feelings,  the  profound  degradation  of  certain 
young  brides,  from  the  very  circumstantial  reports  of  the 
ambassadors  charged  with  superintending  the  arrangements 
of  royal  marriages.  These  reports,  it  is  true,  relate  to  a  very 
special  society,  but  it  was  the  highest  society,  and  precisely 
that  which  set  the  fashion.  No  one  would  imagine  what 
singular  details  are  to  be  found  in  these  letters. 

Take  for  instance  an  incident  that  happened  at  the 
charming  Court  of  Urbino,  perhaps  the  most  exquisite  of 
all  courts.  On  the  morrow  of  her  son's  marriage,  the 
Duchess-dowager  had  the  door  of  the  bridal  chamber  flung 
open  at  dawn,  and  approaching  her  daughter-in-law,  who 
bashfully  tried  to  hide  under  the  bedclothes,  said  to  her: 
"Well  now,  my  daughter,  isn't  it  a  fine  thing  to  sleep  with 
the  men ! "  What  a  compliment  from  the  Queen  of 
Platonism  !     No  one  after  this  will  deny  that  marriage  is 


42       THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

everywhere  stamped  with  the  character  of  unredeemed 
prose. 

That  phrase  "  fine  thing  "  in  particular,  which  on  the  lips 
of  the  duchess  so  often  denoted  the  ideal,  startles  us  here 
with  a  singular  irony. 

Or  again,  what  a  curious  chapter  of  adventures  was  that 
of  Bianca  Sforza,  who  as  heiress  to  an  immense  fortune  had 
become  by  proxy  the  wife  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian! 
Ambassador  Brascha  was  deputed  to  the  delicate  mission  of 
proceeding  to  Innspriick  to  hand  the  princess  over  to  her 
husband,  but  lo  !  on  arriving  they  found  no  one  to  meet 
them  but  an  archduchess.  How  was  he  to  extricate  the 
lady  from  this  embarrassing  situation  ? 

Brascha  wrote  to  Vienna,  striving  in  the  meantime  to  put 
a  good  face  on  the  matter,  giving  balls,  and  so  forth. 

Maximilian  was  in  no  hurry  to  reply,  but  wrote  at  length, 
asking  to  see  the  ambassador.  Brascha  set  out  instantly, 
taking  with  him  this  charming  but  singular  note: 

"  Most  serene  King, 

My  lord,  I  find  myself  under  such  obligations 
towards  your  Majesty  that  I  am  quite  dazed  at  the  love  you  manifest 
for  me.  I  could  not  if  I  tried  express  the  joy  which  floods  my  soul. 
Being  unable  to  testify  to  it  sufficiently  in  writing,  I  send  Measer 
Erasmus  Brascha  to  speak  on  my  behalf  :  and  I  beseech  your  Majesty 
to  believe  him,  and  I  commend  myself  to  you. 
Innspriick,  December  26,  1493. 

From  Your  Majesty's  handmaid, 

Blanca  Maria,  with  her  own  hand." 

It  was  two  months  before  Brascha  returned:  he  was 
determined  not  to  return  alone.  The  Emperor  was  very 
much  occupied  :  he  entertained  the  ambassador  handsomely, 
invited  him  to  festivities,  waxed  eloquent  in  praise  of  the 
Sforza  family,  and  even  mentioned  Innspriick  with  much 
urbanity;  but  all  this  did  not  answer  the  purpose  of  the 
unlucky  Brascha,  whose  exertions,  uneasiness,  and  distress 
of  mind  may  be  imagined.  At  last  the  imperial  procession 
began  to  move :  for  Brascha  it  was  a  moment  of  poignant 
emotion.  Poor  Bianca  had  no  prudish  reluctance  in  quit- 
ting Innspriick,  where  she  had  been  so  long  eating  her 
heart  out,  and  the  union  took  place  on  March  9  at  Ala. 
And  on  the  10th  Brascha  wrote,  with  a  sounding  sigh  of 
satisfaction  :   "  At   last,   thank   God,  we  have  got  to  the 


MARRIAGE  43 

consummation  of  the  marriage,  to  the  confusion  of  our 
enemies.  I  spent  yesterday  evening  with  the  king  and 
queen,  and  we  were  deep  in  conversation  up  to  the  time 
when,  the  Court  having  broken  up,  their  Majesties  decided 
to  go  to  bed."  Brascha  was  resolved  to  make  quite  sure, 
continuing  for  several  nights  in  succession  to  assure  himself. 
At  last  he  breathed  freely !  Ah !  such  missions  as  this 
were  no  sinecures ! 

But  when  the  time  came  for  reappearing  in  public,  life 
glowed  with  a  new  heat  and  resumed  all  its  exquisite 
charm.  If  by  some  chance  a  young  bride  of  princely  rank 
had  to  cross  Italy  to  rejoin  her  husband,  she  saw  along  her 
whole  course  nothing  but  demonstrations  of  joy,  smiling 
faces,  charming  freaks  of  fancy ;  to  give  her  pleasure  these 
affectionate  people  used  their  one  resource — invention.  At 
Milan  the  poet  Bellincione  and  Leonardo  da  Vinci  welcomed 
the  young  wife  of  Giovanni  Galeazzo  in  a  sort  of  firmament, 
in  which  animated  planets  circled  round  her,  loading  her 
with  compliments  the  while.  Plato  in  his  raptest  moods 
never  imagined  anything  sweeter  or  lovelier  than  certain 
tokens  of  homage  paid  by  the  Italians  to  a  new  sovereign 
lady.  On  returning  to  their  domains  the  Duke  and  Duchess 
of  Urbino  found,  ranged  upon  a  hill-slope,  the  ladies  of  the 
city  exquisitely  dressed,  and  the  children  bearing  olive- 
branches  in  their  hands.  As  soon  as  the  bridal  party  came 
in  sight  a  screen  of  mounted  choristers  rose  up  before  them, 
accompanied  by  nymphs  in  antique  garb ;  dogs  started 
off  in  pursuit  of  hares  let  loose  for  them  ;  the  hills  resounded 
with  the  strains  of  a  cantata  specially  composed ;  the 
Goddess  of  Mirth  in  person  descended  the  slope  and  offered 
the  duchess  her  congratulations  and  good  wishes. 

These  affectionate  welcomes,  this  show  of  cordiality  at 
least  warmed  the  sick  and  sad  heart  of  a  young  wife,  and 
indicated  at  the  outset  her  path  of  safety.  Yes,  it  was  a 
pious  and  salutary  work  to  envelop  in  an  ideal  world  this 
timid  child  of  nature  who  was  being  consigned  to  a  lord 
and  master.  It  would  have  been  barbarous  to  check  this 
joy  in  external  things  ;  to  show  the  poor  girl  from  the  verj' 
first  the  cutting  of  bread-and-butter  as  the  be-all  and  end- 
all  of  a  woman's  life ;  to  shut  out  from  her  view  all  that 
lends  brightness  and  colour  to  the  world.  On  the  contrary, 
thanks  to  the  smiles  with  which  heaven  and  earth  greeted 


J 

44       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

her,  a  woman  of  intelligence  and  sensibility  entered  upon 
her  mission  with  a  stout  heart,  in  the  vague  anticipation 
that  fortune  was  bound  to  smile  upon  her  still.  Where  was 
the  harm  ?  There  was  nothing  in  her  hopes  to  prevent  her 
from  treading  the  stoical  path  of  destiny  and  lending  herself 
to  the  material  functions  that  devolved  upon  her.  But  her 
eyes  were  opened,  she  perceived  the  dawn  for  her  of  a  life 
which  her  husband  had  long  known.  It  was  now  her  turn 
to  blossom  out ;  she  became  conscious  of  her  soul,  and 
understood  that  she  too  was  to  be  entitled  to  her  youth. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  MAEEIED  WOMAN 

■  Woman,  in  my  judgment,  is  the  stumbling-block  in  a  man's 
career.  To  love  a  woman  and  yet  do  anything  worth  doing 
is  very  difficult,  and  the  only  way  to  escape  being  reduced 
by  love  to  a  life  of  idleness  is  to  marry."  There  is  nothing 
new  in  this  reflection,  put  by  Tolstoi  into  the  mouth  of  one 
of  his  characters.1  Such  was  the  theory  of  the  Middle  Ages 
— fatal  love  !  The  new-fledged  husband  was  under  no  illusion 
in  the  matter :  he  had  married  to  cure  himself  of  love,  or 
rather  to  have  done  with  it  for  ever,  to  turn  from  woman 
and  towards  higher  things ;  he  would  never  have  imagined 
any  connection  between  his  marital  duties  and  his  soul. 
First  and  last,  wedlock  had  no  romance  for  him.  Marriage 
was  the  worn  and  dusty  highway  of  materialities. 

Nor  did  the  expectations  of  the  young  girl  soar  any 
higher.  Shown  the  simple  truth  by  the  solemn  personages 
to  whom  she  owed  her  upbringing,  sedulously  guarded 
against  any  kind  of  illusion,  she  knew  all  there  was  to  know 
about  her  new  duties,  and  in  regard  to  these  it  was  thought 
peculiarly  necessary  to  arm  her  against  errors  and  enthu- 
siasms that  might  bring  disappointments  in  their  train. 
Marriage  she  had  always  looked  upon  as  a  natural  function 
with  excellent  precedents,  and  she  had  studied  its  rules,  in 
their  rudiments  at  least,  so  as  to  be  able  to  guide  her  steps 
intelligently  in  a  career  that  had  necessarily  its  technical  side. 

This  was  why  Champier  the  physician  compiled  expressly 

for  Suzanne  de  Bourbon — that  peerless  flower  among  noble 

maidens — a  little  treatise  quite  foreign  in  its  nature  to  what 

is  in  these  days  called  "  literature  for  young  people."     Yet 

1  Anna  Karenina. 

45 


46       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

it  must  be  confessed  that  this  treatise,  frankly  physiological 
as  it  is,  constituted  the  best  imaginable  safeguard  against 
being  swept  away  on  a  flood-tide  of  passion  and  folly. 
Champier  lays  down,  as  rigorously  as  though  stating  an 
astronomical  law,  various  rules  for  his  lady's  guidance  in 
the  most  intimate  relations  of  wedded  life ;  prudence, 
moderation,  and  regularity  are  his  text,  and  he  gives  point 
to  his  precepts  by  setting  against  them  a  menacing  array  of 
human  ills — gout,  anaemia,  dyspepsia,  enfeeblement  of  the 
sight.1  Prosing  preachers  of  this  sort,  let  us  add,  addressed 
themselves  chiefly  to  the  women,  and  their  exhortations 
were  felt  to  be  necessary  and  moral  in  the  extreme. 

Marriage  being  a  partnership  to  perpetuate  a  stock  and 
beget  children,  the  wife  was  naturally  expected  to  accept 
without  wincing  the  consequences  of  the  contract — conse- 
quences it  was  as  unreasonable  to  decry  as  to  extol.  All 
around  her  she  saw  reminders  of  the  high  sacredness  and 
dignity  of  her  vocation :  genealogical  trees  spread  their  vast 
ramifications  over  the  walls,  and,  while  invoking  the  past, 
gravely,  almost  solemnly  shaped  for  her  that  gigantic  note 
of  interrogation  in  regard  to  the  future  which  distinguishes 
man  from  the  brutes :  the  whole  taking  deeper  significance 
and  impressiveness  from  the  emblematic  figures  of  Wisdom, 
Honour,  Reason,  with  which  some  artist  had  illustrated 
them.  "  Marriage  is  a  holy  and  religious  bond ;  and  the 
pleasure  a  man  hath  of  it  should  be  a  moderate,  staid,  and 
serious  pleasure,  and  blent  somewhat  with  severity." 2  To 
attach  oneself  to  this  pleasure,  to  make  it  the  axis  of  one's 
world,  would  have  seemed  beneath  contempt.  By  the  favour 
of  Heaven,  a  wife  could  still  retain  her  self-respect  and  be- 
come a  moral  and  religious  souL 

1  "  Y  cuidez-vous  avoir  repos 
En  manage,  mes  mignons? 
Ouy  dea  !  " 
f "  And  think  you  then  to  find  repose 
In  marriage  bonds,  my  jolly  joes  ? 
Heigh  ho  ! "] 
chuckles  Roger  de  Coilerye,  addressing  himself  here,  however,  to  men. 

2  "  It  ought  to  be  a  voluptuousness  somewhat  circumspect  and  con- 
scientious. ...  Is  not  a  man  a  miserable  creature  ?  He  is  scarce  come  to 
his  own  strength  by  his  natural  condition,  to  taste  one  only  complete, 
entire  and  pure  pleasure,  but  he  laboureth  by  discourse  to  cut  it  off:  he  is 
not  wretched  enough  except  by  art  and  study  he  augment  his  misery. 
{Monlaigne,  bk.  i.  cap.  xxix.  [Florio's  translation]). 


THE  MARRIED   WOMAN  47 

On  these  lines  the  straight  path  was  marked  out:  in 
regard  to  circumstances,  neither  revolt  nor  rapture;  between 
the  two  partners,  neither  love  nor  hate,  but  an  amicable 
understanding,  a  little  stiff  perhaps,  and  wholly  practical. 
To  stray  from  this  path  was  only  to  fall  into  difficulties  and 
mistakes. 

To  what  extent  this  wary  walking  really  availed  is  a 
question  upon  which  opinions  have  always  been  pretty 
evenly  divided.  Marriage  was  the  time-honoured  target  at 
which  everyone  had  a  prescriptive  right  to  discharge  the 
shafts  of  his  wit ;  for  all  that,  marrying  and  giving  in 
marriage  proceeded  apace,  and  the  institution  went  on  per- 
petuating itself  imperturbably.  It  may  well  be  believed 
that,  at  an  epoch  when  conversation,  free  discussion,  and  a 
mania  for  philosophising  were  in  vogue,  no  one  lost  an 
opportunity  of  airing  his  views  on  the  surprises  and  the 
advantages  of  wedlock ;  and  indeed  it  is  at  this  time  that 
we  see  the  first  indication  that  the  shafts  of  irony  were 
taking  effect,  and  that  the  target,  after  all,  was  showing 
signs  of  wear. 

Here,  too,  there  emerges  more  clearly  into  view  a  truth 
which  the  reader  will  already  have  seen  faintly  suggesting 
itself  in  the  careful  and  impartial  sketch  we  have  en- 
deavoured to  draw  of  the  beginning  of  life  for  women  :  the 
truth,  namely,  that  the  ascendency  of  man  developed  in  him 
strange  principles  of  egotism.  It  might  be  supposed  that 
married  women,  handed  over,  as  we  have  shown,  like  so 
many  sheep,  would  pitifully  cry  out  against  their  sacrifice, 
while  the  husbands  would  be  abundantly  satisfied  with  the 
results  of  a  "  deal "  (if  the  word  may  be  allowed)  effected  at 
so  little  cost  to  themselves.  But  such  was  not  the  case  : 
humanity  is  so  constituted  that,  sunk  in  abject  slavery,  with 
no  glimpse  of  anything  beyond,  it  will  hug  its  chains;  while 
the  more  freedom  it  enjoys,  the  keener  grows  its  appetite 
for  freedom.  So  long  as  we  are  sure  of  a  to-morrow,  and 
believe  that  somehow  or  other  our  lot  may  yet  improve,  the 
present  does  not  count :  but,  for  us  to  love  the  present,  the 
future  must  stretch  out  before  us  into  the  gloom  of  the  un- 
known, and  this,  no  doubt,  is  why  Providence  imposes  on 
us  the  great  enigma  of  death.  So  it  was  with  marriage. 
While  the  women  were  content,  the  husbands  railed  at  it. 
Monogamy  irritated  them.    Despite  all  possible  precautions 


I 


48       THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

monogamy  almost  inevitably  endows  the  wife  with  a  certain 
influence.  Polygamy  alone,  in  virtue  of  the  classic  principle 
divide  et  impera,  can  assure  to  a  husband  an  undisputed 
authority,  and  that  is  why,  at  bottom,  to  many  men  who 
dared  not  avow  it,  polygamy  appeared  the  most  natural  of 
luxuries.  There  are  savants,  too,  who  will  prove  to  you 
that  in  many  countries  it  was  easy  to  slacken  the  marriage 
bond,  turn  it,  even,  to  profitable  account ;  that  it  was  regu- 
larly let  on  lease  for  a  month  or  a  year.  The  Babylonians 
would  rather  have  lent  a  wife  than  an  ass. 

With  women,  on  the  other  hand,  we  remark  a  resigna- 
tion springing  largely  from  the  code  of  perfect  realism  by 
which  their  marriage  was  regulated. 

They  find  themselves  face  to  face  with  a  fact;  what  is 
done  cannot  be  undone,  nor  can  it  be  done  over  again.  The 
transaction  is  completed:  all  that  remains  is  to  pay  the 
price.  Once  they  can  think  themselves  quit  of  that  obliga- 
tion, the  problem  of  liberty  will  present  itself  to  them  too. 
though  not,  of  course,  under  the  forbidding  aspects  of  those 
ideas  of  divorce,  remarriage,  polygamy,  that  are  floating  in 
the  air.  In  the  eyes  of  the  women  marriage  kept  its 
character  as  a  sacrament :  the  view  that  it  was  a  contract 
freely  entered  into  between  their  husbands  and  themselves 
appeared  hard  to  accept,  for  several  reasons.  In  the  first 
place,  little  faith  was  put  in  that  system  of  social  contracts 
of  which  we  are  so  enamoured  to-day.  Life  was  incompre- 
hensible without  a  large  admixture  of  fatalism.  We  are 
not,  we  cannot  be,  parties  to  a  contract  when  we  come  into 
the  world ;  but  certain  laws  have  already  had  their  way 
with  us,  and  to  them  we  continue  subject.  In  marriage, 
one  of  those  laws,  there  is  nothing  irrational  in  the  accessory 
notion  of  a  contract,  and  yet,  even  in  marriage,  with  every 
imaginable  liberty  of  choice,  the  real  substance  of  a  contract 
is  not  found.  Is  not  this  contract  specially  complicated 
with  latent  circumstances  of  time,  place,  motive,  which  act 
unequally  upon  the  two  parties  ?  In  its  very  nature  it 
involves  so  much  that  is  unknown,  so  much  that  is  for- 
tuitous, admits  of  so  many  causes  of  error  and  instability, 
that  it  barely  comes  into  the  category  of  reasonable  pre- 
sumptions, much  less  of  contracts. 

Erasmus  is  astonished  that  women  are  still  to  be  found 
willing  to  submit  to  all  the  trials  of  maternity ;  and  indeed 


THE   MARRIED   WOMAN  49 

it  would  perhaps  have  been  difficult  to  find  such  women,  if, 
before  venturing  out  upon  so  perilous  a  sea,  they  had  not 
been  able  to  insure  themselves  against  the  selfishness  of  men 
by  a  high  conception  of  duty,  stronger  and,  above  all,  more 
durable  than  the  idea  of  a  contract.  They  needed  no  per- 
suasion to  beware  of  self-delusion,  to  contemplate  marriage 
under  its  most  leaden  hues ;  but  yet  they  wished  to  retain 
for  it  its  character  as  a  refuge,  rude  but  trustworthy.  They 
derided  the  chimerical  theories  of  Plato  on  free  union ;  in 
short,  all  things  considered,  not  one  of  them  regretted  havings 
been  married  in  the  time-honoured  way,  since  no  other  means 
had  yet  been  discovered  of  assuring  an  honourable  mother- 
hood. Unions  of  policy  and  position,  they  very  well  knew,, 
do  not  bring  about  a  fusion  of  hearts  ;  too  often  they  become 
"  suburbs  of  hell."  But  what  is  to  replace  them  ?  Marriages 
of  passion  and  love  ?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  says  a  caustic 
critic,  since  as  mere  men  we  are  no  longer  of  any  import- 
ance, or  at  any  rate  are  all  of  equal  value  in  the  eyes  of 
women,  the  question  is  becoming  much  simpler :  a  princess 
will  be  able  to  marry  after  her  own  heart,  to  wed  a  prince, 
or  a  peasant,  as  there  is  not  a  pin  to  choose  between  them. 
Where  is  the  advantage  ?  retorts  a  sage :  love  matches  turn 
out  as  ill  as  the  others.  The  only  philosophy  of  marriage 
which  women  must  cling  to  is  that  in  this  matter  there  is 
no  philosophy.  It  is  useless  to  attempt  to  sublimate  it; 
what  they  have  to  do  is  to  make  the  best  they  can  of  it, 
and  satisfy  themselves  with  a  sort  of  virtuous  affection,, 
in  accordance  with  the  unfathomable  designs  of  Providence. 
"  Marriage,"  says  Margaret  of  France,1  "  should  not  admit  of 
any  objective  either  of  pleasure  or  of  self-interest :  all  the 
same,  it  is  not  a  perfect  state ;  let  us  be  satisfied  with  wisely 
accepting  it  for  what  it  is,  a  make-shift,  but  reputable."  2 

Thus  the  conclusion  to  which  women  tend  to  arrive  in 
their  cogitations  on  married  life — and  who  have  a  better 
right  to  cogitate  ? — is  that  though  they  may  submit  to  a 
husband,  they  no  longer  think  themselves  bound  to  adapt 
themselves   to  him,  to   identify  themselves   with   him   at 

1  [Elder  sister  (1492-1549)  of  Francis  I.,  and  head  of  the  Renaissance 
party  in  France.  Her  character  is  elaborately  analysed  in  subsequent 
pages  of  this  book.  The  quotations  under  her  name  are  from  the  Hep' 
tameron,  and  the  poems  of  which  she  is  the  reputed  author.] 

8  Heptameron,  Tale  40. 

D 


50        THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

every  moment  and  in  every  caprice,  or  to  worship  this 
fellow-mortal  with  the  same  superstitious  veneration  as  of 
yore.  They  see  him  as  he  is,  a  man,  with  certain  qualities, 
human,  in  the  nature  of  things,  and  certain  defects,  naturally 
far  from  divine :  a  physical  creditor,  whose  claim  they  do  not 
contest,  but  are  well  able  to  measure. 

At  the  risk  of  appearing  rash  in  a  matter  wherein  mathe- 
matical proofs  are  so  difficult  to  produce,  we  think  we  are 
justified  in  asserting  that  the  majority  of  married  women 
(we  are  speaking  of  women  of  position)  desired  to  render 
their  physical  subjection  as  light  as  possible,  regarding  this 
obligation  almost  as  the  seamy  side  of  life,  an  error  of  Provi- 
dence. And  they  had  so  much  the  better  of  the  position 
that,  as  rumours  of  the  little  domestic  dramas  always  got 
abroad  sooner  or  later,  the  ladies  were  almost  certain  to 
have  the  laughers  on  their  side,  especially  in  France.  Tho 
French  refused  all  rights  to  the  married  woman,  but  they 
always  took  her  part,  even  when  she  was  in  the  wrong, 
precisely  because,  as  they  looked  at  marriage,  the  husband 
represented  the  government  and  the  wife  the  opposition. 
Domestic  squabbles  fed  the  stage,  furnishing  certain  types 
which  were  very  popular — to  wit,  tho  man  who  married 
too  young,  or  the  man  who  married  too  old,  the  latter  a 
special  favourite  since  the  time  when  good  King  Louis  XII., 
sacrificing  himself  to  a  dynastic  ambition,  espoused  the  lady 
he  called  his  "torment."  The  husband's  part,  then,  is  in 
truth  difficult  enough  to  play.  If  he  is  intellectual,  platonic, 
there  is  no  pity  for  him,  people  are  all  so  busy  finding 
excuses  for  his  wife.  In  regard,  also,  to  a  husband  who 
puffs  and  blows  and  is  irritably  jealous,  the  "new  right" 
grants  to  the  wife  the  fullest  absolution.  Everyone  knows 
that  a  silk  dress  is  not  enough  for  happiness  ! — and  because 
a  husband  is  pleased  to  be  deaf  or  blind,  it  is  not  to  be  ex- 
pected that  the  whole  world  is  to  be  blind  and  deaf  too. 

On  her  side,  a  wife  had  the  right  to  stand  on  her  dignity 
and  play  the  prude.  In  general,  the  average  worthy  man,  a 
little  vulgar  perhaps,  but  a  good  father  and  an  excellent  man 
of  business,  is  not  a  great  success  in  his  domestic  relations, 
and  in  insisting  on  what  he  regards  as  his  wife's  mission,  the 
bearing  of  children,  he  wofully  deceives  himself.  My  lady's 
mission  is  to  be  the  lady  of  the  house:  as  for  him,  let  him  go 
to  his«office  and  "  think  himself  too  much  honoured  that  God 


THE  MARRIED  WOMAN  51 

has  blessed  him  with  such  a  wife."  If  it  is  a  question  of  re- 
ceiving fine  fashionable  friends,  people  from  Court,  madam 
has  incomparable  graces ;  but  any  tender  approaches  on  the 
good  man's  part  are  sure  to  bring  on  a  fit  of  the  megrims. 

There  were  a  multitude  of  good,  excellent  marriages 
which  were  only  half  marriages.  Appearances  were  saved 
in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  and  even  in  the  eyes  of  the  married 
couple  themselves ;  they  both  had  the  good  taste  to  drift 
along  without  undue  strain,  gathering  merely  the  natural 
fruits  of  their  association.  Both  enjoyed  their  liberty  :  the 
wife  was  unmolested  and  her  own  mistress ;  the  husband 
travelled,  sailed  the  seas,  or  went  on  embassies,  striking  up 
flirtations  in  his  progress  from  court  to  court,  and  doing  his 
household  honour  by  his  successes.  Castiglione,1  a  perfect 
type  of  the  man  of  the  world,  saw  his  wife  at  intervals,  and 
was  always  on  the  best  of  terms  with  her ;  evidently  it  never 
occurred  to  him  to  take  her  about  with  him,  but  he  always 
showed  her  in  the  most  delicate  manner  how  much  he 
valued  her.  At  Rome  he  amused  himself  by  putting  into 
verse  a  letter  he  was  addressing  to  her.  It  was  at  Rome, 
too,  in  August  1520,  that  he  learnt  of  her  death  in  giving 
birth  to  a  daughter ;  just  before  she  died  the  tender-hearted 
woman  mustered  strength  to  smile  for  the  last  time,  and  to 
dictate  one  more  charming  little  letter.2 

1  [Baldassare  Castiglione  (1478-1529),  the  author  of  the  famous  Book  of  the 
Courtier,  Hoby's  translation  of  which  has  been  recently  added  to  Mr.  Henley's 
*  Tudor  Translations. '  This  book  is  frequently  quoted  from  and  alluded  to 
in  the  following  pages.  It  purports  to  be  a  record  of  conversations  held  at 
the  Court  of  Guidobaldo,  Duke  of  Urbino  (1472-1508),  upon  the  qualities 
that  make  up  the  perfect  courtier,  and  many  other  subjects  incidentally. 
The  chief  interlocutors  who  are  mentioned  in  these  pages,  are  the  duchess, 
Elizabeth  Gonzaga;  Cardinal  Pietro  Bembo  (1470-1547),  of  so  fastidious  a 
taste  as  to  revise  his  works  forty  times,  the  author  of  Oli  Asolani,  dialogues 
on  platonic  love  ;  Bibbiena  ;  and  the  coarse  and  dissolute  Pietro  Aretino, 
called  Unico  (1492-1557),  who  alternately  satirised  and  sponged  on  the 
great ;  he  wrote  several  witty  and  indecent  comedies,  and  his  letters  throw 
much  light  on  the  social  life  of  his  time.  The  reader  will  find  some 
specimens  of  his  work  La  Gortigiana  (the  Courtesan)  quoted  in  Burton's 
Anatomy  of  Melancholy. ,] 

2  The  abate  Serassi  has  preserved  it:  "My  dear  husband,  I  have  got  a 
little  daughter,  for  which  I  think  you  will  not  be  sorry.  I  have  been  much 
worse  than  last  time,  and,  as  I  wrote  you,  I  have  had  three  attacks  of  very 
high  fever.  To-day,  however,  I  am  feeling  better,  and  hope  to  have  no 
more  trouble.  I  will  not  try  to  write  any  longer,  lest  I  be  over  bold. 
With  all  my  heart  I  commend  myself  to  your  lordship.  Your  wife,  who 
a  little  starocca  with  pain.     Mantua,  August  20,  1520. 


52        THE  WOMEN    OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Montaigne  has  a  good  deal  of  pity  for  the  women  who 
were  subjected  to  these  capricious  humours :  "  They  are 
verily  in  worse  condition  than  maids  and  widows.  We 
want  them  at  the  same  time  hot  and  cold."  He  does  not 
remark  that,  for  some  reason  or  other — disgust  of  too  pro- 
nounced a  materialism,  longing  for  peace  and  quietness, 
coquetry,  scorn  of  sensuality,  or  what  not — the  majority  of 
women  only  accepted  wifehood  for  the  sake  of  motherhood, 
and  would  be  more  than  satisfied  if  they  could  be  virgin- 
mothers  ;  some  considered  themselves  almost  as  idols  sacred 
from  human  touch.  Pope  Alexander  VI.,  for  all  his  humour 
and  his  nimble  wit,  was  very  far  from  understanding  all 
these  refinements,  and  this  singular  loathing  of  the  flesh. 
In  1502  he  expressed  himself  pithily  and  forcibly,  but 
vainly,  about  the  amusing  opposition  of  the  Duchess  of 
Urbino,  who,  when  she  was  offered  urgent  and  incontestable 
reasons  for  the  annulment  of  her  marriage,1  absolutely 
refused  to  exchange  her  husband  for  a  French  husband  of 
unimpaired  vigour,  whilst  the  duke,  the  cause  of  this 
contention,  accepted  a  cardinal's  hat.  Laugh  as  Alexander 
might,  with  all  his  keen  sense  of  humour,  at  what  he  called 
"fraternal  magnanimity,"  this  simple  incident  at  Urbino 
contained  the  germ  of  an  entirely  new  code.  Other  ladies 
carried  the  sentiment  of '  fraternity '  to  preposterous  lengths. 
Paul  Jove2  himself,  who  belonged  body  and  soul  to  the 
philosophic  world,  gives  vent  to  his  feelings  when  he  records 
the  remarkable  feat  of  Julia  Gonzaga,  Countess  of  Fondi, 
who  was  left  a  widow  after  many  years  of  marriage  without 
having  ever  yielded  on  the  essential  point.  Marriage  so 
understood  becomes  a  mere  matter  of  policy  or  business. 

We  have  no  wish  to  dilate  on  this  delicate  problem  of 
bodily  emancipation ;  but  it  so  constantly  comes  before  us, 
and  it  is  especially  of  such  vast  importance  in  regard  to  the 
further  development  of  the  ideas  current  in  society,  that  it 
is  hardly  possible  to  avoid  doing  so.  The  preachers,  who  at 
one  time  had  ardently  urged  the  severing  of  family  ties  as 
inexorably  demanded  by  religion,  are  now  seen  proclaiming 
from  their  pulpits,  with   the  same  appeal  to   religion,   a 

1  [The  duke's  health  was  ruined  by  early  excesses ;  Castiglione  says  'gout.'] 
'[Paolo  Giovio,    Italian   historian  (1483-1552),   an  interesting  but  un- 
trustworthy writer.      As  Brantome  puts  it,  he  used  two  pens,  one  of  gold, 
the  other  of  iron,  according  as  the  princes  he  served  treated  him  1] 


THE   MARRIED   WOMAN  53 

totally  different  doctrine,  and  inculcating  mortification  of 
the  flesh  of  quite  a  novel  kind.  We  know  the  story  of  an 
excellent  pharmacist  of  Pau  "  who  never  had  anything  to  do 
with  his  wife  except  in  Holy  Week,1  by  way  of  penance." 
Even  in  remote  country  places  it  became  the  vogue  to 
occupy  separate  rooms.  There  was  no  attempt  at  disguising 
the  fact,  and  a  good  deal  of  joking  on  this  casuistical  refine- 
ment went  on  in  polite  circles.  It  was  one  of  the  points  on 
which  Henri  d'Albret  was  not  backward  in  rallying  his  wife 
Margaret.  She  flung  back  the  half-laughing,  half-angry 
retort :  "  Henri,  perhaps  the  lady  whom  you  think  so  much 
to  be  pitied  might  find  some  solace  if  she  pleased.  But  let 
us  dismiss  the  pastimes  in  which  only  two  can  share,  and 
speak  of  what  should  be  common  to  all."  Then  Henri, 
taking  as  was  proper  a  higher  tone  above  these  trivialities, 
addresses  humanity  at  large :  "  Since  my  wife  has  caught  so 
well  the  drift  of  my  remark,  and  takes  no  pleasure  in  a 
pastime  for  the  individual  ....  I  give  in."  2 

We  have  often  read  the  eulogies  on  Margaret  of  France, 
sister  of  Francis  I.,  and  the  compliments  paid  to  her 
conjugal  virtue.  There  is  no  reason  to  gainsay  them,  but 
it  is  well  to  note  of  what  stuff  her  virtue  was  made. 
Henri  II.  could  write :  "  Without  me,  she  would  never  have 
returned  to  her  husband."  And,  in  truth,  she  made  no 
secret  of  it. 

One  day  when  someone  was  relating  a  scandalous  freak 
on  the  part  of  a  faithless  husband,  Henri  d'Albret  said  to 
her  with  affected  tenderness:  "I  assure  you  that  I  shall 
never  undertake  so  great  or  so  difficult  an  enterprise.  I 
shall  not  have  spent  my  day  badly  if  I  succeed  in  making 
you  happy."  And  Margaret  made  the  somewhat  dry  and 
aesthetic  reply :  "If  mutual  love  does  not  satisfy  the  heart, 
all  else  will  fail  to  do  so."  Towards  the  end  of  a  certain 
December  the  Princess  happened  to  be  a  little  out  of  sorts  ; 
whereupon  she  wrote  boldly  to  her  brother :  "  I  got  this  on 
St.  Firmin's  day  (September  25),  as  likely  as  not."  This 
recalls  a  certain  bet  that  M.  de  la  Rochepot  made  with 
Queen  Eleanor,  wife  of  Francis  I.  La  Rochepot  maintained 
that  the  queen  was  drawing  the  long  bow — that  she  was 
not  really  so  free  with  her  favours  as  she  gave  people  to 
understand.  However,  he  forbore  like  a  gallant  gentleman 
1  Heplameron,  Tale  68.  *  Heplameron,  Prologue  and  Tale  45. 


54       THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

to  insist,  and  surrendered  to  the  contrary  testimony  of  men 
who  had  the  best  reasons  for  knowing. 

But  now,  in  the  midst  of  this  cold,  nicely  balanced  exist- 
ence, or  these  serious  misunderstandings  even,  a  heavy 
blow  falls  suddenly  in  the  shape  of  illness :  the  husband  is 
struck  down.  Instantly  a  change  comes  over  everything. 
Womanly  kindness  gushes  forth  as  from  a  natural  spring. 
The  wife's  concern  is  still,  as  is  always  the  case  in  matri- 
monial questions,  only  with  the  bodily  realm,  but  the  soul 
breaks  through.  For  the  first  time  the  wife  asserts  herself, 
less  perhaps  out  of  affection  for  a  man  from  whom  only 
yesterday  she  held  aloof,  than  in  obedience  to  a  natural 
instinct  for  combatting  material  things,  pain  and  disease. 
Differences  of  temperament,  character,  position,  philosophical 
views,  all  drop  out  of  sight :  sensibility  alone  shines  forth 
triumphant.  The  house  is  in  commotion,  messengers  scour 
the  country  in  search  of  distant  physicians,  the  chaplain 
sets  off  to  arrange  for  masses  and  votive  candles.  See,  at 
the  bedside  of  Pierre  de  Bourbon,  the  great  Anne  of  France, 
once  the  haughty  regent  of  the  kingdom,  now  fixing  her 
eyes  steadfastly  on  the  sick  man,  taking  no  rest  day  or 
night,  declining  aid  from  anyone,  measuring  out  potions  and 
remedies  with  her  own  hand,  administering  the  doses  herself, 
warming  the  bed,  doing  for  the  patient  little  offices  of 
infinite  delicacy  without  a  touch  of  constraint;  an  eye- 
witness goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  she  "  made  it  her  delight." 
The  wedded  wife  is  not  a  love-sick  girl,  a  scribbler  of  verses; 
she  has  no  need  of  imagination,  of  airs  and  graces,  of 
enthusiasm  :  here  she  is  seen  in  all  her  grave  nobility.  She 
is  a  sister  of  mercy.  The  woman  who  could  not  pardon  a 
cross-grained  husband  resigns  herself  without  hesitation  to 
a  future  of  poultices,  cooling  draughts,  and  rheumatism. 
Some  there  are  who  endure  this  lot  for  long  years  without 
flagging,  some  who  encounter  it  at  the  very  outset  of  their 
married  life.     It  is  their  natural  vocation. 

The  attraction  exercised  on  women  by  suffering  is  one  of 
the  most  singular  phenomena  in  the  realm  of  psychology. 
It  is  as  evident  as  the  attraction  of  the  magnet  for  iron. 
Women  are  born  nurses  and  doctors,  with  a  passion  for 
tending  the  sick,  for  dedicating  themselves  with  all  their 
wealth  of  tenderness,  for  devoting  their  delicate  fingers  to 
the  binding  up  of  wounds.     Between  this  passion  and  the 


THE   MARRIED   WOMAN  55 

passion  of  love  there  is  an  intimate  relationship ;  in  both 
is  involved  the  bestowing  of  life  on  man ;  but  in  this  case 
the  problem  is  very  simple,  presenting  none  of  the  moral 
complications  of  love.  Matter-of-fact  and  practical  women 
are  not  the  least  strongly  convinced  of  the  vocation  of  their 
sex  for  medicine. 

So  general  was  the  impression  in  regard  to  this  that  a 
certain  pious  author  advised  that  the  doors  of  the  medical 
school  should  be  thrown  open  freely  to  women,  that  they 
should  be  taught  all  that  men  were  taught,  indeed  a  little 
more  (Greek  and  Arabic),  and  that  they  should  then  be  sent 
off  to  the  Holy  Land  to  aid  in  the  conversion  of  the  infidels. 

But  why  not  keep  in  France  women  so  well-instructed  ? 
The  reader  no  doubt  has  an  inkling  of  the  reason:  the 
physicians  are  to  be  reckoned  with,  jealous  guardians  of 
their  monopoly,  already  exasperated  against  the  surgeons, 
apothecaries,  and  women,  "  nonentities,"  who  are  meddling 
with  the  care  of  the  children.  They  are  masculine,  these 
physicians,  men  to  their  finger-tips :  to>  kill,  or  at  any  rate 
to  physic  one's  fellows,  one  must  needs  wear  breeches. 
"The  woman  who  meddles  with  our  trade  is  a  silly 
creature." 

Women  did  meddle  with  it,  nevertheless,  out  of  devotion, 
and  above  all  out  of  self-respect.  And  on  this  matter  we 
must  take  note  of  ideas  absolutely  the  reverse  of  those 
which  prevail  to-day. 

To  women  it  would  have  appeared  the  deepest  humiliation 
and  the  basest  servitude  to  depend  on  men  for  the  thousand 
intimate  and  special  attentions  which  they  so  often  found 
necessary  in  regard  to  their  health.  Undoubtedly  they 
held  that  modesty  is  to  some  extent  a  relative  term,  and 
that  "intentions"  count  for  something  in  it.  So  they 
willingly  permitted  all  sorts  of  friendly,  spontaneous,  per- 
sonal familiarities,  so  long  as  they  were  in  good  taste  ;  but 
even  when  sick  and  suffering  they  were  determined  to 
remain  women ;  and  the  idea  of  surrendering  their  woman- 
hood, of  passing  like  cattle  under  the  hands  and  eyes  of  a 
horse-doctor  on  the  mere  pretext  that  the  modesty  of  a  girl 
or  a  woman  is  a  remnant  of  savagery,  and  that  all  stand- 
offishness  in  this  respect  appears  almost  an  insult  towards  a 
practitioner,  did  not  strike  them  as  a  matter  of  course;  they 
repudiated  it  absolutely ;  and,  moreover,  the  Roman,  Greek, 


5G        THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

and  Arabic  ideas,  then  so  fashionable,  strengthened  their 
resistance. 

So  far  from  believing  that  a  man  had  more  rights  because 
he  was  paid,  or  because  his  senses  had  become  deadened  by 
constant  wear  and  tear,  they  regarded  both  these  circum- 
stances as  adding  to  their  humiliation  and  confusion.  For 
their  special  maladies  they  had  recourse  to  women  only ; 
and  the  very  fact  that  in  such  cases  physical  pain  is  com- 
plicated with  moral  pain  and  weariness  of  soul,  led  women 
of  the  world,  great  ladies,  to  take  up  a  work  of  charity  of 
real  delicacy  and  refinement,  to  devote  themselves  to  a 
thorough  study  of  this  class  of  maladies,  so  that  they  might 
spare  their  sisters  the  unpleasantness  of  mercenary  atten- 
tions. 

Nothing  could  be  more  gracious  or  more  natural. 

Science  at  this  period  was  science,  and  a  man  was  a  man. 
He  was  as  much  entitled  to  study  medicine,  and  to  practise 
it,  even  without  a  diploma,  as  to  study  any  other  branch  of 
knowledge — history,  mathematics,  or  chemistry.  To  have 
dragged  out  a  few  years  on  the  benches  of  a  school  is 
assuredly  not  a  bad  means  of  learning,  but  it  is  not  the  only 
one,  and  it  ought  not  to  be  regarded  as  warranting  for  the 
rest  of  a  man's  life  a  positive  presumption  of  his  universal 
knowledge  and  impeccability.  In  medicine,  as  in  other 
things,  so-called  amateurs1  have  been  known  occasionally 
to  bear  the  palm  over  professionals.  Now,  what  science  can 
women  more  naturally  cultivate,  what  answers  better  to 
their  requirements  in  regard  to  refinement  and  equality, 
what  more  legitimately  emancipates  them  ?  The  practice 
of  medicine  was  their  first  conquest,  the  "  great  charter  "  of 
their  freedom.  A  number  of  women,  particularly  women 
of  distinction  who  had  charitable  hearts  and  leisure  for 
study,  in  a  certain  sense  practised  medicine.  A  celebrated 
savant,  while  gently  expressing  his  regret,  dedicated  to 
Diana  of  Poitiers,2  as  to  a  colleague,  with  a  thousand  pro- 
fessions of  scientific  esteem,  a  treatise  on  the  diseases  of 
women. 

*By  'amateurs'  we  mean  men  who,  while  not  professionally  qualified, 
have  leisure  to  devote  to  extended  scientific  study.  In  our  own  day,  as  is 
well  known,  M.  Pasteur  and  M.  Claude  Bernard  would  not  be  entitled  to 
give  professional  advice. 

2  [Mistress  of  Henri  II.,  an  imperious  and  avaricious  woman,  but  a 
generous  patron  of  the  arts.     See  Hugo's  Le  Roi  a'amute.] 


THE   MARRIED   WOMAN  57 

Except  that  they  watched  for  the  propitious  moment  for 
regaining  the  upper  hand,  the  physicians  gave  in ;  they  left 
the  patient  in  the  hands  of  a  woman,  contenting  themselves 
with  writing  a  prescription  on  the  particulars  reported  to 
them,  thus  securing  at  least  formal  recognition — and  their 
fees.  Even  from  professorial  chairs  medicine  was 
extolled  as  a  lovely  and  philosophic  thing;  and  in  an 
official  ceremony  at  Paris  a  "prince  of  science"  (to  adopt 
a  modern  term)  declared  to  a  large  audience  that  Nature 
has  a  certain  feminine  complexion,  that  she  has  been 
specially  bountiful  to  women  and  endowed  them  more 
highly  than  men. 

It  should  be  remarked  that  if  the  physicians  had  the 
good  sense  not  to  quarrel  with  the  formidable  power  of 
women,  but  to  come  to  terms,  that  result  was  probably 
due  to  the  fact  that  they  were  themselves  in  the  throes 
of  a  crisis  which  could  not  but  inspire  them  with  great  pru- 
dence. People  were  up  in  arms  against  them  ;  they  were 
no  longer  content  with  rehashing  stale  jokes ; '  the  sick 
expected  to  be  cured.  Further,  complete  discord  reigned 
in  the  scientific  world';'  men  vied  with  each  other  in  flinging 
about  opprobrious  epithets  like  "  fool,"  "  mountebank,"  and 
"  specialist."  Paris  remained  faithful  to  the  traditional  and 
philosophic  spirit,  while  Paracelsus  burnt  the  works  of  Galen 
and  Avicenna.  Many  men  dismissed  medicine  as  a  purely 
empirical  science  with  no  theory  behind  it,  and  capable  of 
being  mastered  in  six  months.  The  activity  in  scientific 
circles  only  added  to  the  intellectual  confusion.  Opinion 
went  so  far  as  to  hold  doctors  responsible  for  their  actions, 
and  to  maintain  that  their  repute  should  be  strictly  propor- 
tionate to  their  merits.2  There  were  not  wanting  sceptics, 
even  among  women.  Margaret  of  France,  in  one  of  her 
comedies,  brings  on  the  scene  a  sick  man  who,  after 
being  tossed  about  like  a  shuttlecock  between  his  doctor 

"'I  affirm  not  but  I  may  one  day  be  drawn  to  such  fond  opinions,  and 
yield  my  life  and  health  to  the  mercy,  discretion,  and  regimen  of  physi- 
cians," says  Montaigne.  "I  may  haply  fall  into  this  fond  madness;  I 
cannot  answer  for  my  future  constancy.  But  even  then,  if  any  ask  me 
how  I  do,  I  may  answer  him  as  did  Pericles,  'You  may  judge  by  that.'" 
(Bk.  II.  chap,  xxxvii.) 

8"0  heavenly  physician!"  cries  St.  Theresa,  "thou  dost  resemble 
only  in  name  these  physicians  on  earth  !  Thou  visitest  the  sick  without 
summons,  and  more  gladly  the  poor  than  the  rich." 


58        THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

and  his  wife,  is  ultimately  cured  through  the  prayers  of 
the  cook. 

Nevertheless,  a  real  bond  of  friendship  and  brotherhood 
was  in  most  cases  established  between  the  lady  and  this 
stranger  who  called  himself  a  doctor.  It  was  a  sort  of 
domestic  and  personal  intimacy.  Women,  as  we  all  know, 
are  greatly  in  need  of  a  directing  authority ;  they  love  also 
to  be  made  much  of,  as  certain  doctors  understood  wonder- 
fully well ;  like  that  doctor  who  never  met  a  woman  without 
attempting  to  worm  out  of  her  some  confidences  as  to  her 
health,  and  when  someone  expressed  his  astonishment, 
"Aha!"  said  he,  waggling  his  head,  "even  well-corked 
bottles  sometimes  have  cracks."  In  reality,  he  fancied  that 
his  solicitude  would  be  highly  appreciated. 

The  doctor  who  won  a  lady's  esteem  became  her  friend. 
He  would  write  to  her  asking  how  she  was,  and  addressing 
her  as  "my  sweet  princess";  if  he  learnt  of  her  illness, 
he  flew  to  her;  if  she  died,  he  mourned  her.  His  senti- 
ments sometimes  outran  his  interests;  a  noble  lady  died, 
and  among  her  effects  were  found  formidable  doctor's  bills 
she  had  forgotten  to  settle.  If  in  special  cases  there  were 
limits  to  the  confidence  patients  placed  in  their  doctor's 
skill,  there  remained  still  a  vast  enough  field  for  private 
friendship,  which  lent  itself  only  too  well  to  scandal. 

Official  recommendations  to  hold  medicine  in  respect  "  on 
account  of  its  necessity "  came  from  the  pulpit.  Priests 
and  doctors  gave  each  other  mutual  support  and  divided 
the  empire  between  them.1  Scholars  unearthed  the  old 
story  of  a  medical  student  who  bore  himself  like  an  angel 
while  attending  an  Aspasia.  But  in  spite  of  these  little 
testimonials,  ill-natured  folk  like  Ronsard,  Brantome  and 
others  continued  with  more  or  less  virtuous  indignation 
to  make  doctors  their  butt.  Dolce2  amuses  himself  by 
relating  the  misadventure  of  a  young  husband,  who,  having 
confided  to  his  physician  his  intense  longing  to  become  a 
father,  was  ere  long  lodging  with  the  courts  a  complaint 
that  he  had  too  speedily  obtained  his  wish.  The  public 
was  always  ready  to  laugh  at  stories  of  this  kind.     Medical 

1  Doctors,  further,  had  to  take  orders  and  were  not  allowed  to  marry. 

2  [An  Italian  writer  (1508-156S)  who  "wrote  in  all  styles  but  excelled  in 
none."  He  wrote  two  dialogues  on  matrimony  and  the  misadventures  of 
husbands.  ] 


THE  MARRIED   WOMAN  59 

science  was  often  considered  as  an  instrument  of  corruption. 
Champier,  who  practised  at  Lyons,  in  good  set  terms 
accuses  his  fellow-physicians  of  becoming  veritable  agents 
of  demoralisation,  and  of  perverting  their  patients'  moral 
sense. 

So  far  as  medicine  was  concerned,  women  showed  a 
becoming  modesty  in  their  ambition.  Many  medical  women 
were  women  of  the  old  school,  who  acknowledged  the 
superiority  of  men.  They  confined  themselves  to  a  well- 
defined  field  of  study.  As  soon  as  she  marries,  a  woman 
will  join  battle  with  sickness;  by  and  by  she  will  have 
children  to  take  care  of,  then  it  will  be  her  duty  to  preserve 
her  beauty  and  charms.  Here  is  a  medical  field  well 
marked  out  for  her.  On  other  points  she  remains  subordi- 
nate to  men,  leaving  to  them  in  particular  all  lofty  specula- 
tions. 

An  eminent,  if  not  the  foremost  place  in  the  medicine  of 
the  schools  was  then  held  by  astrology,  to  which  the 
physicians,  wise  in  their  generation,  owed  a  great  part  of 
their  prestige.1    Assuredly  it  was  not  hard  to  believe,  with 

1  Savonarola,  who  fought  in  vain  against  the  vogue  of  astrology  (Opus 
singulare  contra  I'astrologia :  a  woodcut  represents  him  disputing  with  an 
astrologer),  ridicules  the  Roman  prelates  who  never  moved  a  step  without 
consulting  their  astrologer.  The  great  soldiers  and  sovereign  princes, 
such  as  Ludovico  Sforza  and  Francesco  di  Gonzaga,  were  no  whit  different. 
In  princely  houses  a  physician  who  would  not  condescend  to  practise 
astrology  led  a  sorry  life.  He  points  to  his  phials  in  vain  ;  "  against  death 
he  has  no  medicine  "  ;  while  the  astrologer,  a  man  of  position,  handsome, 
fat,  well-fed,  rich,  gazes  into  the  boundless  heavens  (Dance  of  Death) ; 
there  was  no  profession  more  lucrative  than  astrology,  none  more  tempting 
to  ambition.  It  lent  itself  to  dramatic  effects.  First  the  astrologer  was 
usually  a  foreigner,  no  man  having  honour  in  his  own  country — an  Italian 
or  German,  or,  better  still,  a  Moor  or  Gipsy.  He  puts  on  airs  and  keeps 
his  clients  waiting.  If  someone  sends  him  a  birth  date,  to  have  his  horoscope 
cast,  he  sends  no  reply ;  his  eyes  are  so  fatigued  by  constant  watching! 
he  is  so  tired !  And  the  awestruck  princesses  in  the  waiting-room  say  to 
one  another  that  patience  is  necessary  with  "such  geniuses."  And  the 
stars  were  put  to  marvellous  uses. 

Bonaventure  des  Periers  relates  the  amusing  story  of  a  physician  of  Paris, 
who,  alleging  high  astrological  reasons,  never  showed  any  amiability  to 
his  wife  except  .on  rainy  days.  The  despairing  lady  at  last  hit  upon  a 
very  simple  expedient :  every  evening  she  had  a  tub  of  water  emptied  on 
the  roof  so  as  to  produce  the  sound  of  a  shower  in  the  gutter-spout,  and  it 
rained  every  day !  At  this  game  the  physician  came  off  second-best  and 
died ;  and  his  widow,  who  found  herself  very  well  off,  was  besieged  with 
numerous  offers.  She  incontinently  sent  all  the  physicians  packing,  then 
asked  her  other  suitors  if  they  were  familiar  with  the  moon  and  stars. 
Everyone  thought  it  well  to  make  solemn  affirmation  that  he  was,  and 


CO        THE  WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

Plato  and  the  Christian  church,  that  the  universe  does  not 
end  with  man,  and  that  above  us  there  is  a  hierarchy 
of  supernatural  beings,  imperceptible  to  our  senses,  on 
whom  we  depend,  and  whose  wings  sometimes  seem  to 
brush  us  as  they  pass :  those  beings  whom  Ronsard  has 
invoked,  in  verses  of  so  much  beauty,  as  witnesses  of  his 
love : 

Ailes  demons,  qui  tenez  de  la  terre 
Et  du  haut  ciel  justement  le  milieu, 
Postes  divins,  divins  postes  de  Dieu.1 

Many  physicians  held  that  the  noblest  part  of  their  art 
consisted  in  penetrating  if  possible  the  mystery  of  the 
influence  of  these  supernatural  forces. 

Further,  how  could  they  but  discover,  even  in  the  natural 
order  of  material  things,  a  universal  harmony,  intimate 
relations  between  the  health  of  women  and  the  ocean  tides 
and  the  revolutions  of  the  heavens,  a  thousand  bonds — 

D'ii;nombrables  liens,  freles  et  douloureux, 

Qui  vont  dans  Punivers  entier  de  1'ame  aux  choses,9 

as  M.  Sully-Prudhomme  sings?  People  who  had  lost  all 
belief  in  the  saints  had  in  those  days  the  strongest  faith  in 
heaven  and  the  stars.     They  believed  readily  enough  that 

received  his  conge".  There  was  only  one  who  was  simple  enough  to  confess 
that  his  science  was  limited  to  taking  moon  and  stars  to  witness  when 
he  went  to  bed.  He  gained  the  day  (Contes  et  Recreations,  Tale  95).  No 
glory  was  wanting  to  astrology ;  physicians  and  savants  practised,  defended, 
and  taught  it;  great  nobles  gave  it  their  patronage.  Marshal  Trivulze 
accepted  the  dedication  of  Pirovano's  Defence  of  Astrology.  The  science 
numbered  eminent  adepts.  Luther  made  use  of  it  in  support  of  his  doctrines . 
Michel  Servet,  after  vainly  trying  theology  and  medicine,  began  to  profess 
transcendental  astrology ;  he  foretold  eclipses,  plagues,  wars,  and  the 
deaths  of  potentates  ;  he  achieved  a  very  great  success,  pupils  drank  in  his 
instruction.  Unhappily  the  jealous  Faculty  directed  him  to  return  to  the 
natural  sciences  and  give  up  the  "Almanac."  Servet  then  turned  geo- 
grapher, and  it  was  not  long  before  he  went  back  into  the  religious  mel^e. 
The  Atlas  of  Astrologers,  one  of  the  most  curious  monuments  of  moral 
derangement,  enumerates  a  crowd  of  astrologers,  among  them  the  Sibyls  of 
the  Vatican  and  King  Alfonso  of  Naples. 

i  Wing'd  spirits,  who  the  middle  space 
'Twixt  earth  and  highest  heaven  possess, 
God's  scouts,  the  outposts  of  his  grace. 

2  Unnumbered  cords,  frail  strands  full  fraught  with  pain, 
That  join  the  soul  to  things  of  time  and  sense. 


THE   MARRIED   WOMAN  61 

though  the  spirit,  coming  from  God,  is  free,  the  vile  physical 
body  depends  wholly  on  the  stars — 

Aux  corps  vous  donnez  vostre  loy, 
Comme  un  potier  a  son  argile.1 

These  celestial  torches  govern  the  universe.  In  vain  man 
struggles,  suffers,  battles,  strains  all  his  powers ;  he  is  in  the 
grip  of  a  mysterious  destiny. 

Ainsi  vous  plaist,  estoilles  !  .  .  . 
En  vain  l'homme  de  sa  prie're 
Vous  tourmente  soir  et  matin ; 
II  est  traine  par  son  destin, 
Comme  est  un  not  de  la  riviere.2 

— Ronsard. 

Women,  particularly  sensitive  to  the  mystery  of  things, 
could  not  close  their  ears  against  such  lofty  scientific 
preoccupations.  Renee  of  France  implores  the  aid  of  the 
stars.  Margaret  exclaims,  "  their  effects  are  felt  in  human 
bodies."  Yet  the  surrender  wass  not  complete,  as  one  might 
be  disposed  to  expect :  it  is  a  very  remarkable  fact  that  in 
spite  of  their  natural  impressibility  and  their  genius  for 
imaginative  flights,  they  did  not  readily  ascribe  to  medicine 
so  supernal  a  glory.  To  them  medicine  was  a  science  of 
the  earth  earthy,  a  practical  and  experimental  science.  The 
only  metaphysical  principle  they  associated  with  it  came 
from  without;  and  that  was,  charity. 

On  the  other  hand  they  were  wonderfully  credulous.3 
One  of  their  passions  was  to  collect  strange  exotic  recipes  of 
any  and  every  kind.  Catherine  Sforza,  statesman  as  she 
was,  spent  hours  in  a  private  laboratory,  receiving  a  Jewess 
who  had  brought  her  a  universal  salve,  or  verifying  formulae 
for  a  celestial  water,  a  cerebrine  made  of  the  marrow  of  an 
ass,  a  magnet  intended  to  compose  family  squabbles,  and  a 

1  The  body  's  ruled  by  your  command, 
Like  clay  beneath  the  potter's  hand. 

2  And  this  your  will  and  pleasure,  stars  ! 

In  vain  doth  man  at  eve  and  morn 
Torment  you  with  his  useless  prayer ; 
Fate  sweeps  him  on,  he  knows  not  where, 

As  billows  on  the  stream  are  borne. 

8  Les  Evangiles  des  quenouilles  promise  to  a  wife  a  son  or  a  daughter 
according  as  she  loves  battle  stories  or  has  longings  for  dancing  and  music. 


62        THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

thousand  other  prescriptions  of  like  virtue.  One  of  her 
ambassadors  sends  her  a  drug  chiefly  compounded  of  eggs 
and  saffron,  of  which  he  sings  the  virtues  with  a  frenzy  of 
enthusiasm :  "  I  wish  to  be  present  when  you  test  it.  .  .  . 
I  would  not  change  places  with  the  King  of  France,  so  happy 
am  I  in  contemplating  so  admirable  a  thing;  and  besides, 
your  Excellency  would  not  find  another  man  like  me :  for 
courage  is  required,  not  to  be  afraid  of  spirits;  faith,  to  believe; 
secrecy,  to  betray  nothing;  and,  finally,  you  need  the 
instruments  that  I  have ;  the  Universities  of  Bologna, 
Ferrara,  Paris,  and  Rome  possess  nothing  like  them."  At 
the  very  moment  of  going  to  war  Catherine  does  not  forget 
to  write  an  order  for  the  jars  she  needs  for  her  experiments. 
Nevertheless,  in  all  these  strings  of  formulae,  often  so 
puerile  and  collected  for  collecting's  sake,  we  detect  more 
than  a  collector's  mania:  we  cannot  but  see  in  them  the 
thirst  for  the  unknown — an  attempt  to  pierce  the  impene- 
trable beyond.  This  effort,  it  may  be  admitted,  was  not 
very  scientific.  But  was  that  of  the  most  highly  accredited 
physician  any  more  so  ?  Women  accepted  the  doctrine  that 
the  sun  governed  the  heart  and  nerves,  Jupiter  the  liver,  and 
Venus  the  rest  of  the  organism  ;  but  they  were  superior  to 
it  in  so  far  as  they  drew  no  conclusion  from  it,  making 
hygiene  their  chief  aim,  and  limiting  their  ambition  to  the 
preservation  of  health  and  youthfulness. 

In  this  respect  they  were  successful ;  women  have  rarely 
been  known  to  retain  their  beauty  in  so  much  freshness  up 
to  an  advanced  age  as  these  women  of  the  first  years  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  Their  activity  was  unceasing,  they 
drank  deep  of  life,  but  never  to  excess :  therein  lay  their 
great  secret — a  secret  that  was  simplicity  itself,  and  of 
inestimable  value,  as  the  next  generation  was  to  find  when, 
by  dint  of  defying  nature,  by  crushing  themselves  under 
busks  and  baubles,  exposing  the  bosom,  turning  night  into 
day,  or  carrying  everything  to  extremes,  the  world  became 
peopled  with  pale-faced,  forbidding,  white-lipped  women. 
Ere  long  a  cruel  procession  of  maladies  appeared — nervous 
attacks,  fits  of  hysteria,  stabbing  pains  at  the  heart,  agonising 
births  of  puny  creatures — signalising  the  return  of  neur- 
asthenia, which  had  seemed  buried,  but  which  was  to 
revive  in  triumph,  and  for  which  no  other  remedies  were  to 
be  found  than  a  return  to  the  life  of  nature,  fresh  air,  repose, 


THE  MARRIED  WOMAN  63 

renunciation  of  the  habits  of  the  fashionable  world,  uninter- 
rupted vegetation. 

In  brief,  the  woman  whom  marriage  has  started  upon  a 
physiological  career  is  bent  on  defending  her  body  and  remain- 
ing her  own  mistress,  in  face  of  her  husband,  her  physician 
— the  whole  world. 

She  has  her  work  cut  out  for  her.  Further,  she  is  beset 
under  various  forms  by  an  irruption  of  materialities,  which 
would  speedily  overwhelm  her  if  she  did  not  know  how  to 
cope  with  them.  She  has  still  to  govern  the  household,  to 
regulate  day  by  day  its  eating,  drinking,  sleeping — the 
whole  domestic  organisation. 

Husbands  are  all  alike ;  it  is  in  great  measure  to  secure  a 
house  which  "  goes  like  clockwork,"  that  they  marry.  They 
consider  it  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  for  a  woman 
to  consecrate  herself  to  rounding  off  their  life,  to  yoke 
herself  in  unmurmuring  submission  to  thankless  tasks,  like 
the  domestic  drudge  described  by  Solomon,  necessary  to  the 
world  as  food  or  light :  "  She  seeketh  wool  and  flax,  and 
worketh  willingly  with  her  hands.  .  .  .  She  riseth  also 
while  it  is  yet  night,  and  giveth  meat  to  her  household  and 
a  portion  to  her  maidens.  .  .  .  She  girdeth  her  loins  with 
strength.  .  .  .  Strength  and  honour  are  her  clothing.  .  .  . 
Favour  is  deceitful  and  beauty  is  vain,  but  a  woman  that 
feareth  the  Lord,  she  shall  be  praised." 

The  preachers  take  pains  to  show  that  she  shall  indeed  be 
praised,  that  her  ideal  is  glorious  though  her  lot  will  be 
obscure,  and  that  there  is  a  happiness  in  housewifely 
duty — in  feeling  that  the  whole  household  moves  by  her 
impulse  alone.  "  The  wise  woman  has  exalted  her  house  " ; 
on  her  wisdom  and  rectitude  has  depended  the  greatness  or 
the  decay  of  a  family.  To  pull  down  is  the  work  of  fools. 
The  wise  build  up,  and  is  not  to  build  up  a  splendid  mission, 
say  the  preachers  with  growing  ardour — to  build  up  happi- 
ness for  those  one  loves,  and  one's  own  happiness  in  this 
world  and  the  world  to  come  ?  "  Favour  is  deceitful  and 
beauty  is  vain ! "  Look  at  this  massive  woman,  probably 
happy  in  her  own  way,  a  marvel  of  plumpness,  with  firm-set 
lips  and  a  look  of  energy  and  masterfulness,  unpoetic  but 
very  wholesome — this  matron  of  Lotto,  blind  to  all  indica- 
tions that  ironical  moonbeams  are  grimacing  behind  her; 
or  this  superb  large-limbed  creature,  burdened  with  a  cluster 


64.       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

of  children,  whom  Holbein  presents  to  us  as  his  wife.  These 
good  ladies,  we  may  be  sure,  rise  at  six  and  retire  at  ten,  and 
from  dawn  till  dark  their  only  aim  in  life  is  to  take  the  air, 
to  go  to  church,  to  cook  and  dust  and  darn.  No  Utopia 
worries  them,  no  philosophic  idea  ruffles  the  calm  monotony 
of  their  lot. 

The  majority  of  French  women  were  sprung  from  this 
type  in  its  most  pronounced  form,  the  rural  form,  and  it  was 
practically  impossible  for  them  to  alter.  In  France  men  of 
rank  almost  all  belonged  to  the  class  of  landed  proprietors, 
and  the  affairs  of  these  proprietors  had  been  for  several 
years  passing  through  a  crisis.  Even  if  their  income  were 
below  the  moderate  figure  of  three  or  four  thousand  livres,1 
they  had  to  submit  to  being  eaten  out  of  house  and  home  by 
a  number  of  traditional  functionaries,  while  on  the  other 
hand  the  growing  needs  of  luxury  and  the  depreciation  of 
money  seriously  embarrassed  them.  More  than  one  noble, 
believing  he  saw  a  mine  of  gold  opening  in  Italy,  had  joy- 
ously buckled  on  his  sword  again,  only  to  return  impover- 
ished, if  not  in  debt,  worn  out,  and  soured  in  temper, 

The  country  squire  bore  his  straitened  circumstances  with 
rather  an  ill  grace.  Rubbing  shoulders  with  the  peasants 
(and  the  humblest  peasant  was  a  lord  in  his  own  eyes)  and 
with  the  village  authorities;  a  determined  foe  to  Jews, 
financiers,  and  monopolists ;  a  democrat,  persuaded  that  all 
men  are  equal,  or  nearly  so ;  resigned  moreover  to  figure  as 
head  of  his  village,  since  a  head  it  was  bound  to  have,  but 
troubling  himself  very  little  about  the  other  social  magnates; 
he  shut  himself  up  in  his  estates  like  his  father  and  grand- 
father before  him,  among  the  sons  and  grandsons  of  the 
people  by  whom  those  respectable  personages  had  been  sur- 
rounded. He  was  an  excellent  man,  of  bluff  manners  and 
healthy  appetite,  determined  to  keep  his  eldest  son  waiting 
for  his  inheritance  as  long  as  possible,  and  to  disperse  the 
rest  of  his  family,  sending  the  boys  into  the  Church  or  the 
army,  and  marrying  the  girls  to  his  neighbours.  He  had  a 
grudge  against  Louis  XII.  for  giving  the  landed  interest 
nothing  but  fair  words:  Francis  I.,  who  multiplied  court 
appointments  and  paid  handsome  salaries,  appeared  to  him 
the  right  sort  of  king  for  agriculturists. 

1  One  of  the  greatest  ladies  of  the  time,  Marie  de  Luxembourg,  Countess 
of  Venddme,  lived  ou  an  annual  income  of  16,000  livres. 


THE   MARRIED   WOMAN  65 

That  was  the  kind  of  man  with  whom  and  for  whom  the 
majority  of  the  women  of  French  society  lived.  At  bottom, 
this  husband  is  an  idealist ;  he  despises  money,  and 
plumes  himself  on  the  fact  with  a  certain  smug  satisfaction  ; 
but  in  his  home  life  he  frequently  acts  as  an  absolute 
realist,  a  cold-blooded  calculator.  He  will  readily  and 
with  the  utmost  chivalrousness  admit  that  women  in 
general  are  superior  beings,  worthy  of  much  liberty  ;  but  he 
insists  on  his  particular  woman  remaining  on  a  lower  plane 
and  occupying  herself  with  practical  matters.  He  relin- 
quishes to  her  the  honour  of  keeping  the  accounts,  he  even 
authorises  her  to  negotiate  a  bargain,  or  to  secure  payment 
of  a  due,  while  he  himself  hunts,  settles  disputes  among  his 
peasants,  potters  about,  or  does  nothing.  Montaigne  is 
eager  to  avow  that  he  has  no  concern  with  business ;  in  his 
view  it  is  ridiculous  and  unjust  "  that  the  idleness  of  our 
wives  should  be  fostered  with  our  sweat  and  maintained  by 
our  toil."  He  admits  in  the  most  liberal  manner  the  right 
of  women  to  work,  and  does  so  from  pure  goodness  of  heart, 
since  women  delight  in  managing,  and  a  woman  who  works 
wants  no  pity !  While  Madame  de  Montaigne  is  keeping 
his  accounts,  planting,  reaping,  looking  after  the  masons,  her 
intellectual  husband  is  good-naturedly  gossiping  about  man- 
kind at  large,  or  tranquilly  contemplating  the  backs  of  his 
books,  or  dawdling  through  Italy,  on  the  principle  that 
travel  is  the  salt  of  wedlock,  poking  his  nose  into  everything 
on  the  way,  halting  at  the  watering-places,  visiting  interest- 
ing young  ladies ;  all  the  time  reverencing  his  wife,  oh,  so 
deeply !  He  feels  that  when  he  returns  and  finds  her  among 
the  haymakers,  his  love  will  take  a  new  lease  of  life: 
"These  interruptions  fill  me  with  a  new  kind  of  affection 
towards  mine  own  people,  and  make  my  house  so  much 

Eleasanter  a  place.  ...  I  am  not  ignorant  that  true  amity 
ath  arms  long  enough  to  embrace,  to  clasp  and  hold  from 
one  corner  of  the  world  unto  another.  .  .  .  The  Stoics  say 
that  there  is  so  great  an  affinity  and  mutual  relation  between 
wise  men  that  he  who  dineth  in  France  feedeth  his  companion 
in  Egypt.  ...  If  I  be  at  Rome  ...  I  hold,  I  survey 
and  govern  my  house   .  I  even  see  my  walls,  my  trees 

and  my  rents  to  grow." x 

In  those  days  the  direction  of  a  household  was  an  admir- 
1  Book  III. 

E 


66        THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

able  apprenticeship  to  philosophy,  since  it  was  a  point  of 
honour  to  maintain  a  great  number  of  idle  people.  Thus 
Madame  de  la  Tre'moille  had  to  rule,  feed,  and  place  forty 
men,  four  of  whom  were  attached  to  her  personal  service 
(chaplain,  tailor,  groom,  and  steward),  and  only  three  women, 
of  whom  one  was  a  nurse. 

She  had  to  maintain  this  retinue  and  give  it  a  stamp  of 
high  respectability  and  discipline,  which  was  all  the  more 
difficult  because  the  servants  were  people  of  some  conse- 
quence, there  for  life,  holding  places  that  had  been  hereditary 
for  several  generations ;  in  other  words,  the  house  belonged 
to  them,  in  virtue  of  some  indefinable  family  collectivism. 

Further,  people  had  an  ingrained  propensity  to  regard 
generosity  as  the  special  mark  of  an  aristocrat ;  and  as  this 
virtue  was  expected  to  grow  in  proportion  to  rank,  it 
invariably  had  the  drawback  of  straitening  their  means. 
Out  of  an  enormous  total  expenditure,  Madame  de  la  Tre^ 
moille  had  at  her  disposal  only  two  hundred  livres  for  her 
personal  use.  A  prince  was  often  worse  off  than  those  who 
lived  on  his  bounty. 

Further,  this  "  generosity  "  did  not  manifest  itself  only  in 
money :  it  declared  itself  in  affectionate  and  gracious  actions, 
which  after  all  involved  expense.  Thus  at  Blois  no  domestic 
event  took  place  in  the  household  without  the  cognizance  of 
the  Duchess  of  Orleans ;  she  interested  herself  in  the 
weddings  and  gave  each  couple  a  present:  her  children  acted 
as  sponsors;  she  even  looked  after  her  servants'  love- 
children  ;  she  watched  over  the  aged ;  any  of  her  servants 
or  even  of  their  friends  who  were  in  trouble  were  sure  of 
her  sympathy ;  she  interceded  with  the  king  to  obtain 
pardon  for  a  criminal  or  the  remission  of  a  tax  :  "  You  will 
do  both  great  charity  and  alms,"  she  wrote  to  him,  "and  to 
me  a  singular  pleasure."  Here  and  there  in  her  modest 
accounts  there  is  a  little  space  vacant,  importing  a  surrender 
of  feudal  dues  to  distressed  tenants,  a  remission  of  rent,  a 
cancelling  of  debt. 

In  the  account-books  of  the  leading  French  families  there 
always  occurs  a  very  suggestive  chapter,  under  the  heading 
of  alms.  In  vain  does  the  charitable  spirit  in  its  shrinking 
from  ostentation  draw  a  veil  over  the  few  lines  in  which  the 
facts  are  intentionally  summarised.  You  breathe  in  passing 
an  aroma  of  sweetness,  just  as  in  going  by  a  dead  wall  you 


THE  MARRIED  WOMAN  67 

divine,  from  whiffs  of  their  scent,  the  roses  and  violets  on 
the  other  side.  It  was  the  women's  duty  to  dispense  the 
alms,  and  in  so  doing  they  obtained,  across  the  arid  waste 
of  material  preoccupations,  grand  outlooks  towards  the 
ideal.  A  lady  of  that  period  was  good  from  pure  goodness 
of  heart ;  she  could  let  her  charity  shed  its  radiance  spon- 
taneously, without  effort.  She  lived  in  the  very  heart  of 
wretchedness :  the  filthy  hovel,  instead  of  shrinking  from 
her  sight  and  entrenching  itself  in  hateful  and  inaccessible 
suburbs,  hung  upon  the  walls  of  the  castle,  like  a  parasitic 
plant.  What  woman  could  shut  her  ears  against  the  cries 
of  wretchedness  so  near  ?  And  charity  also  was  recognised 
by  the  State.  Louis  XII.  devoted  to  it  a  total  of  six 
thousand  livres,  which  he  increased  in  1509  by  one  thou- 
sand six  hundred  and  forty-two  livres ;  and  to  ensure  a 
more  conscientious  distribution  he  even  appointed,  in 
addition  to  his  confessor  and  almoner,  a  special  functionary, 
Jacques  Acarie,  who  received  the  title  of  "  treasurer  of  the 
offerings,  alms,  and  devotions." 

This  fondness  for  almsgiving  the  king  inherited  from  his 
mother,  Mary  of  Cleves,  who  was  generosity  itself.  She 
did  not  confine  herself  to  the  charitable  doles  that  were 
traditional,  or  almost  obligatory,  such  as  the  offerings  at 
Easter  or  All-Hallows :  the  present  of  a  robe  to  the  **  King 
of  the  chateau"  on  Twelfth  Night;  New- Year's  presents  to 
a  whole  village  of  improvised  musicians  who  came  deafening 
her  with  drums,  clarions,  carols,  and  cries  of  "  Au  guy  Van 
neuf!"1  She  went  farther  afield,  to  seek  out  the  poor,  and 
in  secret  she  spent  her  pin-money  in  succouring  them. 
But  these  private  resources  were  far  from  inexhaustible. 
Like  many  women,  she  had  a  strong  predilection  for 
one  special  work  of  charity — the  care  of  women  in  child- 
bed. She  organised  for  them  a  regular  supply  of  food, 
besides  giving  occasional  assistance  in  money  or  in  kind. 

She  took  a  personal  interest  also  in  the  Hospital,  and 
worked  with  her  own  hands  in  a  Dorcas  society  which  she 

1["To  the  Mistletoe  !  the  New  Year!"  The  cry  of  Breton  peasants, 
"  begging  small  presents  or  New-Year's  gifts,  an  ancient  tearm  of  rejoycing 
derived  from  the  Druides,  who  were  wont,  the  first  day  of  January,  to  go 
into  the  woods,  where  having  sacrificed  and  banquetted  together,  they 
gathered  mistletow,  esteeming  it  excellent  to  make  beasts  fruitful,  and 
most  sovereign  against  all  poyson  "  (Cotgrave).  From  a  patois  corruption 
the  Scots  Hogmanay  is  said  to  be  derived.,1 


C8        THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

founded,  and  which  distributed  every  year  in  the  little  town 
of  Blois  five  hundred  shirts  and  five  hundred  dresses. 

In  addition  to  all  this  there  was  a  long  list  of  "good 
works "  in  a  more  special  sense  :  little  dowries  of  fifty  or 
sixty  sous  bestowed  on  poor  girls,  who  sometimes  bore 
notable  names,  like  "  Jeanne  the  Fair,"  ■  Lawrence  and 
Jeanne  de  Saint-Prest " ;  pensions  to  needy  students ;  alms 
to  convents;  subscriptions  to  churches.  The  family  of  Joan 
of  Arc  had  a  special  right  to  the  bounty  of  the  faithful: 
"  Perrette  de  Lys  "  used  to  receive  fifty  sous  "  to  bring  up 
her  own  children." 

Truly  charity  flourished  in  France,  becoming  almost  a 
new  chivalry.  Certain  men  of  the  world  became  self- 
constituted  alms-collectors  for  a  convent  or  nunnery,  under 
the  name  of  its  "  spiritual  friends." 

It  cannot  be  said  that  France  owed  anything  in  this 
regard  to  the  example  of  Italy.  The  Italians  enjoyed  large 
incomes,  much  larger  than  the  average  Frenchman  of 
ancient  and  sometimes  crippled  fortune ;  but  their  expenses 
were  heavier ;  they  had  to  give  fetes  and  buy  pictures  and 
villas.  Without  wishing  to  exaggerate  the  significance  of 
an  anecdote,  it  is  curious  enough  to  compare  with  the  ex- 
cellent practices  of  the  French  Court  a  characteristic  action 
on  the  part  of  Julius  II.  In  the  course  of  the  expedition 
against  Bologna,  the  Pope  was  told  that  one  of  the  old 
court  servants  had  just  lost  his  only  mule.  "  What  did  it 
die  of  ? "  was  the  Pope's  curt  response.  "  Of  the  bad  water 
of  Perugia."  "  Send  the  stud-master  to  me."  Everyone 
believed  that  he  was  sent  for  to  replace  the  defunct  mule, 
but  Julius  simply  said :  "  Take  care  they  drink  nothing  but 
boiled  water." 

Many  great  charitable  schemes  were  in  operation  in  Italy, 
where  refinement  and  compassion  were  highly  developed; 
but  the  wealthy  people  of  Italy  had  no  great  love  for  anony- 
mous almsgiving.  This  was  due,  no  doubt,  to  the  fact  that 
poverty  bears  itself  more  light-heartedly  under  an  azure 
sky.  In  France,  where,  unhappily,  the  stars  could  not  fill 
hungry  mouths,  the  old  traditions,  in  spite  of  the  seductions 
of  luxury,  were  nobly  preserved  by  the  women.  Anne  of 
France  and  Anne  of  Brittany  both  received  the  nickname 
of  "  Mother  of  Maidens,"  in  allusion  to  the  dowerless  girls 
they  befriended.     Anne  of  France,  who  has  sometimes  been 


THE  MARRIED  WOMAN  69 

taxed  with  avarice,  contrived  to  dispense  her  benefactions 
quietly,  as  cleverly  as  others  trumpeted  theirs.  At  her 
expense  intelligent  children  of  the  lower  classes  were  kept 
at  their  studies  until  they  had  taken  their  degree ;  orphans 
learnt  needlework  or  some  trade  ;  widows,  cripples,  beggars, 
poor  folk  too  proud  to  beg,  the  broken-hearted,  saw  unex- 
pected manna  fall  from  heaven ;  deserving  people  were 
encouraged,  sustained,  uplifted,  "  cherished  and  nourished  " 
by  an  unseen  providence.1 

How  beautiful,  how  rare  is  the  art  of  giving!  In  our 
day  we  see  organised  innumerable  charitable  schemes,  "  col- 
lections" without  number,  harvests  of  good  works.  But 
how  many  people  give  for  love  of  giving  ? 

Margaret  of  France,  too,  like  a  true  princess,  was  generous, 
and  loved  to  do  good  by  stealth.  In  her  anxiety  not  to 
appear  to  curry  favour  with  the  people,  she  refused — in  the 
blunt  phraseology  of  one  of  her  biographers — to  act  "  like  a 
mountebank  capering  on  a  platform."  "  She  was  wont  to 
say  that  kings  and  princes  are  not  masters  and  lords  of  the 
poor,  but  only  their  ministers." 

The  writer  of  a  moral  history  must  needs  explore  all 
these  sweet  recesses  of  a  woman's  soul,  where  so  mysterious 
a  work  is  accomplished.  Later  on  we  shall  see  the  women 
bustling  about  on  the  public  stage,  giving  the  world  what  it 
demands  of  them.  Here,  in  the  silence  of  the  heart,  they 
act  only  for  themselves;  yet,  even  from  the  social  stand- 
point, they  will  never  do  a  loftier  or  more  efficacious  work. 
On  the  rugged  path  on  which  so  many  of  the  unhappy  are 
apt  to  lose  their  philosophy,  is  it  not  well  to  spread  a 
soft  thick  carpet,  so  that  the  wayfarers  may  step  more 
lightly  and  be  less  roughly  jolted?  This  of  itself  is  3urely 
a  genuine  work  of  love,  in  full  accord  with  the  words  of 
Christ:  "To  her  much  shall  be  forgiven,  for  she  loved 
much!"  From  the  very  outset  of  their  life,  painfully 
spelling  out  the  meaning  of  wedlock,  women  are,  almost 
unknown  to  themselves,  winging  their  flight  towards  the 
ideal,  towards  love.  Here,  love  calls  itself  charity,  that  is 
to  say,  love  for  the  sick,  love  for  the  poor,  love  for  all  who 
are  weak  and  all  who  suffer. 

1  She  provided  for  so  many  maidens  "  by  way  of  marriage,  and  had  so 
great  care  of  them,  that  she  deserved  to  be  named  their  mother." — La 
Vauyuyon. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE    CHILDREN 

Their  mission  as  mothers,  thanks  to  the  precautions  of 
which  we  have  spoken,  did  not  weigh  very  heavily  upon 
the  women.  '  The  tide  was  set  against  large  families ;  in 
the  country,  six  children  were  thought  an  enormous  en- 
cumbrance, and  as  a  rule  the  higher  the  rank  the  smaller 
the  family.  There  were  not  a  few  houses  which  had  no 
children  at  all.  Somewhere  in  Lombardy,  indeed,  there  was 
an  old  law  granting  exemption  from  taxes  to  families  of 
twelve  children,  but  it  did  not  result  in  an  embarrassed 
exchequer. 

The  physicians  questioned  on  this  phenomenon  return 
only  evasive  explanations.  Placing  themselves  as  they  did 
at  a  special  standpoint,  they  held  the  women  more  especially 
responsible,  accusing  the  detestable  experiments  some  of 
them  indulged  in  with  a  view  to  preserving  their  figure, 
such  as  drinking  water  or  vinegar,  eating  sour  foods,  never 
setting  foot  to  ground;  or  a  life  at  high  pressure,  well 
calculated  to  develop  morbid  germs  and  increase  nervous 
over-excitement ;  the  sort  of  St.  Vitus's  dance  which  affects 
some  people;  and  the  thousand  other  causes  of  moral  and 
cerebral  derangement.  Evidently,  in  their  view,  nothing 
would  be  so  likely  to  facilitate  motherhood  as  a  life  spent 
in  feeding  the  pigs  and  the  poultry. 

Yet  women  resign  themselves  better  than  men  to  the 
trials  that  a  family  brings  upon  them. 

When  they  first  recognise  their  condition,  even  those  who 
do  not  feel  called  upon  to  make  too  much  of  their  duty 
heroically  accept  their  lot.    No  one  pities  them ;  it  is  natural 

70 


THE  CHILDREN  71 

to  them  to  love  children,1  and  if  there  are  moments  of 
anguish  to  fear,  there  are  also  blissful  moments  to  look  for- 
ward to.  The  husband,  on  the  other  hand,  is  disconsolate ; 
he  regrets  everything;  he  sees  in  the  cold  light  of  reason 
the  consequences  of  the  event,  and  his  friends  agree  that  he 
will  reap  nothing  but  worries.  A  man  of  fashion  collects 
pictures,  antiques,  not  children.  Some  charitable  souls 
suggest  that  children  assure  a  kind  of  survival,  are  a  pledge 
of  immortality,  a  security  for  the  continuance  of  the  race ; 
but,  for  that  matter,  a  much  simpler,  surer  and  more  com- 
fortable way  of  achieving  immortality  is  simply  to  write  a 
sonnet.  Hardly  any  but  poor  drudges,  "chestnut  eaters," 
can  afford  the  luxury  of  being  fruitful  and  multiplying, 
because  for  them,  in  their  kind  of  work,  with  their  rigorous 
enforcement  of  paternal  authority,  a  swarm  of  children 
represents  an  immediate  increase  of  earning-power  and  tools 
at  very  little  cost.  A  middle-class  householder,  who  loves 
his  ease  or  is  ambitious  only  to  swell  his  banking  account, 
has  nothing  to  gain  by  a  large  family. 

Among  the  middle  class,  then,  the  budding  father  is  the 
subject  of  sincere  commiseration.  What  cares,  what  vexa- 
tions will  be  his !  He  regards  himself  as  bound  for  some 
time  to  consider  the  slightest  whim  of  his  wife  as  sacred. 
With  a  flutter  at  the  heart  he  hies  him  to  the  astrologer 
to  ascertain  at  least  if  it  is  a  boy  or  a  girl ;  and  when  the 
unfeeling  stars  announce  a  girl,  he  still  manages  to  smile. 

One  tine  day  (or  fine  night,  for  Nature  is  whimsical  in  her 
choice),  see  him,  lantern  in  hand,  chilled  to  the  marrow, 
shivering,  running  off  to  find  the  nurse ;  and  then  what 
terrible,  what  wearing  hours  follow  !  In  very  truth  it  is 
he  who  demands  pity,  for  Providence,  having  failed  to 
foresee  these  moments  for  the  man,  has  forgotten  to  give 
him  strength  equal  to  them.  How  ardently  he  wishes  it 
were  all  over !     "  There  is  no  saint  in  the  calendar,"  he 

1  Quattuor  sunt  que  mulieres  summe  cupiunt : 
A  formosis  amari  juvenibuo, 
Pollere  filiis  pluribus, 
Ornari  preciosis  vestibus, 
Et  dominari  pre  ceteris  in  domibus. 

—  Tractacvli  sive  opuscvli. 

["  Four  things  there  are  that  women  eagerly  covet :  to  be  loved  by 
handsome  youths ;  to  be  good  for  many  sons ;  to  be  decked  out  in  costly 
array ;  and  to  rule  the  roost. "] 


72        THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

cries, "  but  shall  have  his  candle  ! "  The  first  wail  of  the 
newcomer  pours  balm  on  the  mother's  heart;  but  what  of 
the  husband  ?  Can  he  spare  time  to  admire  this  shapeless, 
unsightly  little  creature  ?  He  seeks  nurses  for  mother  and 
child,  he  has  the  room  hung  with  red,  covers  the  floor  with 
velvet  rugs  ;  if  by  good  luck  he  falls  asleep  in  a  corner,  it  is 
only  in  his  dreams  to  see  a  spectral  balance-sheet  dancing  a 
frantic  saraband.     No,  he  has  not  his  wife's  strength. 

The  red  room  becomes  for  the  young  mother  a  palace  of 
delight.  It  was  a  charity  to  visit  a  relative,  friend,  or 
neighbour  when  recovery  was  assured,  and  very  few  women 
would  risk  losing  paradise  for  such  a  trifle.  And  so  the  room 
is  never  empty.  There  the  lady  holds  a  "regal  court,"  or 
what  we,  with  less  enthusiasm,  should  call  a  woman's  club. 
We  may  fancy  how  they  chatter,  how  often  the  husband  is 
hauled  over  the  coals,  how  they  cry  shame  on  him.  "  What ! 
this  shabby  dress  !  He  wouldn't  give  you  this  or  that  ? 
Ah,  the  old  skinflint ! " 

There  prevailed  in  Italy  the  very  amiable  practice  of 
sending  all  sorts  of  little  presents — flowers,  fruit,  trinkets, 
nicknacks.  The  young  mother  was  entitled  also  to  a  little 
tray,  painted  or  chased,  of  which  charming  specimens  exist, 
real  works  of  art.  All  these  presents  came  in  a  heap.  With 
his  grave  and  masculine  brush,  Domenico  Ghirlandajo  has 
depicted  for  us  a  scene  at  Santa-Maria-Novella  :  a  maid- 
servant is  presenting  a  cordial  on  the  tray,  a  friend  is 
amusing  herself  with  the  baby,  a  high-born  dame  is  making 
her  entry  in  great  dignity,  a  message-girl  is  bringing  in  a 
superb  basket  of  fruit.  It  is  a  constant  stream  of  visitors, 
wonderfully  picturesque. 

As  to  the  husband,  he  has  disappeared  among  his  occupa- 
tions and  his  worries ;  he  reappears  a  fortnight  later,  to 
return  these  civilities  with  a  grand  dinner. 

The  child  is  to  belong  to  the  mother  until  the  eighth  year; 
an  exquisite  period  in  which  the  heart  will  expand.  It 
is  as  she  clasps  in  her  arms  this  feeble  little  creature,  this 
messenger  from  a  new  world,  that  a  woman  comprehends 
love ;  life  appears  to  her  all  bathed  in  a  mysterious  light, 
golden,  and  warm,  and  glad.  All  women,  whether  cultivated 
or  illiterate,  have  this  sensation. 

For  some  time,  perhaps  for  several  years,  a  mother  can 
thus  find  the  restfulness  that  springs  from  happiness,  and,  in 


THE  CHILDREN  73 

making  all  things  minister  to  her  inward  joy,  she  steeps  her 
soul  in  a  felicity  to  which  she  foresees  no  end. 

No  woman,  then,  ought  to  deprive  herself  of  the  first 
smiles  of  her  child,  his  first  prattlings,  his  divine  fondlings, 
which  Raphael  has  depicted  and  which  Erasmus  considered 
so  beautiful  a  thing  that  he  made  them  a  theme  for  rhetorical 
exercises. 

But  from  the  very  first  the  world  interposed  with  tyran- 
nous hand.  In  old  times  a  woman  had  been  permitted  to 
nurse  her  child ;  suckling  constituted  a  part  of  the  maternal 
functions,  approved  by  moralists  and  physicians.  But  now 
the  fashion  had  changed ;  the  cry  of  milk-sellers  offering 
milk  for  the  nursery  was  added  to  the  morning  din  in  the 
streets  of  Paris.  The  smaller  gentry  and  even  a  certain 
number  of  country  magnates1  sent  their  children  out  to 
nurse ;  and  to  meet  this  need,  human  cattle-rearing  became 
a  recognised  agricultural  industry,  which  flourished  exceed- 
ingly, though  it  was  rather  speculative  for  those  engaged  in 
it,  for  the  children  were  sometimes  left  in  settlement  of  the 
bill. 

In  the  great  houses,  or  those  of  middle  station,  a  nurse 
was  employed,  after  satisfying  moral  and  medical  tests — a 
stout  respectable  person  from  twenty  to  thirty  years  of  age. 
She  entered  the  family,  and  there  represented  the  life  of 
nature,  occupying,  to  the  end  of  her  days  if  she  pleased, 
a  privileged  situation  about  her  foster-child. 

Not  infrequently,  we  must  admit,  the  husband  was 
heartily  at  one  with  the  ancient  principles,  and  would  very 
readily  have  authorised  his  wife  to  dispense  with  a  nurse. 
But  then  some  fair  friend  would  take  him  aside  and  put  him 
to  shame  :  "  What,  he  actually  means  to  impose  that  bondage 
upon  his  wife !  Does  he  not  see  already  how  worn  out  she 
is  !  Ah,  he  means  to  compel  her  to  it,  and  we  very  well 
know  why,  the  miser !  Really,  who  would  have  thought  a 
husband  had  a  soul  black  enough  to  inflict  such  thraldom  on 
a  woman,  who,  thank  God,  still  possesses  some  attractions  !  " 

And  in  that  last  word  there  is  a  world  of  meaning.  A 
wife  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  years,  after  a  year  or  two  of 
marriage,  had  every  reason  to  think  that  life  was  not  over 
for  her,  and  that  she  still  had  need  of  her  beauty. 

1  Montaigne  relates  that  he  was  put  out  to  nurse  with  peasants,  "and 
brought  up  in  the  humblest  and  most  ordinary  way  of  life." 


74        THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Further,  etiquette,  aDd  in  princely  houses  even  politics, 
intervened :  the  convenances  were  opposed  to  a  mother 
taking  too  personal  a  part  in  her  children's  upbringing,  for 
in  that  case  it  would  not  have  been  worth  while  to  own  a 
whole  regiment  of  servants.  There  they  were,  however,  and 
their  allotted  functions  must  be  respected;  and  so  the  mother 
had  to  limit  her  solicitude  to  a  careful  superintendence. 

Nevertheless,  many  women  ventured  to  set  etiquette  at 
defiance.  The  Princess  of  Orange  appears  just  like  any 
other  woman  when  she  writes  so  joyfully  to  her  sister- 
in-law,  Anne  of  France,  that  she  has  just  seen  her  "fair 
niece,"  who  called  her  "mummy  and  daddy,"  and  "gave 
her  as  sweet  a  welcome  in  her  little  baby- talk  as  such  a 
baby  could."  So,  too,  Louise  of  Savoy,  when,  in  1520,  in 
the  midst  of  preoccupations  of  every  kind,  she  recalls  that, 
thirty-five  years  before,  Francis  I.  had  cut  his  first  teeth 
quite  unnoticed,  "  and  was  not  the  least  little  bit  ill" 

Up  to  the  age  of  seven,  the  children  remained  under  their 
mother's  fostering  wing,  in  a  pure  state  of  vegetation. 
Moralists  and  physicians  taught  that  they  must  be  allowed  to 
develop  freely,  without  having  to  learn  anything,  and  without 
bothering  about  anything  but  good  air  and  a  regular  life. 

The  grand  principle  of  education  is  to  let  children  grow 
up  of  themselves,  alone,  unaided,  without  grand  theories, 
without  dogmatism ;  and  to  habituate  them  to  rely  on  noth- 
ing— neither  fear  nor  love ;  to  be  themselves ;  and  this  from 
the  very  earliest  infancy.  Every  being  entering  life  brings 
to  it  his  own  individuality  for  development ;  he  has  the  free 
use  of  his  faculties ;  he  observes  much,  instinctively  using 
eyes  and  ears,  and  his  soul  reflects  his  environment  like  a 
celestial  mirror.  So  the  mother  has  only  to  help  him,  direct 
him,  set  him  good  examples. 

This  careful  attention  in  early  days  appears  of  capital 
importance,  because  then  or  never  is  the  time  to  root  up  any 
little  weeds  one  by  one  as  they  appear.  No  strenuous  effort 
is  needed  ;  it  is  work  to  be  done  by  a  woman's  hand,  gently. 

Hitherto  it  had  been  imagined  that  the  first  thing  needful 
was  to  secure  a  maximum  of  physical  strength,  and  conse- 
quently to  harden  a  child  by  means  almost  cruel,  such  as  an 
exemplary  self-repression,  a  life  in  the  open  air,  freely 
exposed  to  all  inclemencies  of  the  weather.  If  a  child  wept 
he   was   allowed   to  weep.     He  was   taken    sometimes   to 


THE  CHILDREN  75 

church,  or  to  see  very  near  relatives,  but  never  to  places  of 
amusement,  to  the  theatre,  or  to  the  houses  of  the  wealthy. 
To  become  ever  so  little  accustomed  to  comfort,  idleness,  or 
an  artificial  life  was  considered  fatal.  People  feared  to  make 
a  mollycoddle  of  him,  and  said  to  themselves  that  the  army 
and  the  gymnasium  in  later  years  would  never  eradicate  ill 
habits  formed  in  childhood.  They  thought  only  of  the 
children ;  the  mothers  were  left  out  of  account. 

The  women  regarded  this  system  as  much  too  severe,  and 
one  of  the  first  results  of  their  influence  was  its  modification. 
Why  martyr  the  children  under  pretext  of  hardening  them? 
What  was  the  good  of  exposing  them  half  naked  to  the 
cold,  or  of  making  little  monks  of  them,  and  assuming  towards 
them  the  airs  of  a  policeman  ?  Was  it  so  great  a  crime 
to  show  these  poor  little  creatures  some  affection,  to  admit 
them  to  some  share  with  their  elders  in  the  life  they  were 
bound  to  know,  to  form  their  minds  and  their  manners  by 
allowing  them  a  place  at  the  card  table,  or  to  give  them 
companions — even  at  the  cost  of  a  black  eye  ? 

The  old  moralists  regarded  such  proceedings  as  premature 
and  far  too  unsystematic,  and  refused  to  hear  of  anything 
but  muscle,  maintaining  that  entrance  into  the  world  always 
came  soon  enough.  Women  were  to  divert  education  into 
another  channel.  When  they  come  to  gain  greater  power  in 
the  home,  we  shall  find  them  demanding  the  right  to  love 
their  children,  enter  into  their  concerns,  live  with  them, 
take  pleasure  in  them,  at  least  until  they  attain  the  classic 
age  of  seven. 

THE  BOYS. 

When  the  seven  years  were  past,  a  boy  became  for  his 
mother  only  an  object  of  anxiety  or  tribulation.  He  came 
under  the  direct  and  exclusive  authority  of  his  father,  who 
aimed  at  moulding  him  on  large  lines  and  turning  him  at 
fourteen,  not  into  a  bookish  don,  nor  perhaps  a  mere  '  pass- 
man '  even,  but  into  a  man  of  backbone  and  individuality, 
armed  at  all  points  for  the  battle  of  life.  Our  ancestors 
had  a  particular  horror  of  everything  resembling  enlistment 
into  brigades,  reduction  to  a  uniform  pattern.  The  collegiate 
system  seemed  to  them  detestable,  a  make-shift  in  the  worst 
sense ;  Louis  XL,  though  he  took  care  to  send  the  princes  of 


76        THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  younger  branch  to  college,  just  as  carefully  avoided 
sending  his  son  there.  College,  as  Montaigne  said,  was  a 
"  factory  of  Latinizers,"  a  "  house  of  preventive  correction," 
where  men  worked  like  day-labourers  (of  that  period)  four- 
teen or  fifteen  hours  a  day,  until  their  brains  were  completely 
addled  and  they  hated  the  sight  of  books ;  and  what,  if  you 
please,  was  the  magnificent  result  ?  A  smattering  of  Greek 
and  Latin,  a  certain  facility  in  prating  about  Jupiter,  Venus, 
Pyramus — without  too  minute  an  enquiry,  happily,  into  what 
those  august  names  stood  for.  As  to  ideas,  they  did  no  more 
than  stuff  the  boys  with  a  few  stock  notions  to  serve  for 
intelligence,1  instead  of  vigorously  developing  the  creative 
and  original  faculties. 

Thus  there  was  general  agreement  that  college  was  to  be 
avoided  as  much  as  possible,  and  that  a  boy  should  remain 
at  home.  But  then  came  the  tug-of-war.  If  he  remained 
at  home,  the  mother,  who  had  in  all  probability  centred  pre- 
cisely on  this  son  all  her  affection,  would  claim  him  as  her 
care,  which  is  just  what  the  father  did  not  wish;  he  mis- 
trusted her,  her  kindness,  her  "  shows  of  love."  It  was  an 
axiom  that  boys  must  be  subjected  to  thoroughly  masculine 
management,  a  life  of  birching,  under  the  firm  hand  of  the 
father ;  the  father  had  a  perfect  right  to  forbid  them  to  see 
their  mother.  How  could  he  succeed  in  "hardening  the  soul 
and  the  muscles"  of  a  boy,  in  giving  him  a  physical  and 
moral  robustness  depending  largely  on  the  "thickness  of  the 
skin,"  if  the  mother  was  always  at  hand,  interfering,  dis- 
covering that  her  son  had  been  too  hot  or  too  cold,  petting 
him,  commiserating  his  slightest  hardships?  That  was  not 
the  way  to  make  a  man  ! 

Nowhere  was  the  battle  against  feminism  fought  more 
resolutely  than  on  this  ground.  The  adversaries  of  women 
may  be  almost  infallibly  recognised  by  this  mark,  that  they 
insist  above  all  things  on  keeping  in  their  hands  the  educa- 
tion of  men,  because  they  regard  this  as  the  direction  in 
which  the  influence  of  women  is  most  manifestly  fatal. 

They  fear  family  life  because  of  the  freedom  which  reigns 
there,  and  because  they  know  nothing  worse  for  a  man  than 
a  precocious  impulse  towards  sensibility.  "When  I  was 
twenty,"  growls  an  old  man,  "  I  knew  nothing  about  women  ; 
in  these  days,  infants  in  arms  are  further  advanced."     That 

'Montaigne,  6k.  II.,  cap.  iii. 


THE  CHILDEEN  77 

is  a  proof,  someone  will  say,  of  superior  intelligence,  a 
guarantee  of  their  virtue.  Not  at  all.  Any  system,  even 
college,  was  preferred  to  the  education  of  men  by  women. 
From  the  moment  when  tenderness  and  sympathy  become 
paramount  in  a  house,  there  is  no  course  open  but  to  get  rid 
of  the  boys  at  any  cost. 

But  is  not  this  to  push  rigour  a  little  too  far,  and  uselessly 
to  lacerate  the  mother's  heart,  this  aching  heart  which 
thought  it  had  at  last  found  something  to  fill  its  void?  The 
mothers  are  not  lacking  in  arguments  to  support  their 
claims.  They  refuse  absolutely  to  acknowledge  that  kind- 
ness necessarily  spells  weakness.  Has  it  not  been  under- 
stood from  time  immemorial,  by  people  who  could  least  be 
suspected  of  sentimentalism,  how  important  it  is  to  preserve 
for  a  man  his  refuge  in  the  affection  of  his  mother  ?  Have 
not  the  names  of  Saint  Monica  and  so  many  other  devoted 
mothers  always  been  cited  with  delight?  A  rational 
education  ought  not  to  rely  solely  on  the  principle  of  fear : 
it  should  be  the  express  image  of  life ;  and  if  brutality  and 
coarseness  are  to  be  banished  from  the  world,  it  will  not  do 
to  begin  by  sowing  them  broadcast.  How  many  men,  nobly 
fashioned  by  the  hands  of  women,  have  been  brought,  by 
means  of  love's  training  alone,  to  a  perfect  perception  of 
authority,  reverence,  discipline !  Affection  has  a  wisdom  of  its 
own,  secret  agencies  of  its  own ;  a  mother's  heart  can  see  as 
clearly,  and  obtain  as  many  practical  results,  as  the  reason  and 
the  despotism  of  the  father.  In  this,  as  in  other  things,  force 
is  not  everything,  and  another  regimen  is  possible  than  that 
of  the  "birch,"  or  indeed  of  the  "filliping,"  dear  to  Montaigne. 

Margaret  of  France  offers  us  on  this  subject  a  pertinent 
object-lesson;  she  cites  herself.  Her  mother,  Louise  of  Savoy, 
left  a  widow,  indulged  to  the  utmost  the  luxury  of  freely 
loving  her  children.  When  someone  spoke  to  her  of  handing 
her  son  over  to  men,  she  made  answer  by  installing  the  bed 
of  the  young  Francis  in  her  own  room.     And  the  result  ? 

Fille  et  filz  eut,  a  elle  ob6yssans, 
Rempliz  d'esprit,  de  vertuz  et  bon  sens,  i 

We  can  understand  what  deep  chords  were  struck  by  this 
dispute  between  the  fathers  and  the  mothers,  and  what 

1  [Daughter  and  son  gave  her  obedience, 
Stored  full  of  wit  and  virtue  and  good  sense.  1 


78        THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

echoes  it  set  sounding  in  the  whole  life  of  the  women. 
Separated  as  they  were  from  their  sons  by  force  of  custom, 
it  was  natural  indeed  that,  eager  to  imbue  the  stern  spirit 
of  men  with  love  and  tenderness,  they  should  turn  passion- 
ately to  the  love  of  their  children. 

In  the  first  engagement  they  were  often  worsted.  The 
son  went  off  to  college.  Montaigne  deplores  it.  It  is  within 
the  four  walls  of  a  class-room,  he  says,  and  by  doses  of 
Greek  syntax,  that  a  young  fellow  is  to  be  taught  the 
science  of  life  and  given  that  clear  philosophic  outlook 
which  comes  through  history  and  experience !  What  pro- 
fessor will  teach  him  the  wisdom  of  holding  aloof  from  the 
world's  Vanity  Fair,  swarming  with  upstart  mountebanks 
and  overweening  buffoons  ?  His  mother  would  have  liked 
to  extract  for  him  the  essence  of  life,  the  secret  of  happiness, 
to  impart  to  him  the  sacred  spark  of  love.  But  Montaigne 
is  one  of  those  who  regard  this  as  very  dangerous ;  he 
believes,  in  short,  that  "seeing  the  world"  would  be  still 
more  fatal  than  "  preventive  imprisonment." 

In  other  cases,  the  father  would  select  a  tutor  to  train  his 
son,  and  then  the  crisis  lay  below  the  surface. 

The  father  always  has  some  hesitation  in  determining  his 
course.  To  begin  with,  he  thinks  of  the  expense,  and 
though  enthusiasts  represent  that  there  is  no  better  invest- 
ment, he  knits  his  brows.  Then  he  would  like  to  find  a 
perfect  man :  a  difficult  matter.  As  a  rule,  he  decides  on 
the  recommendation  of  friends,  who  have  seen  their  nominee 
at  work,  and  are  loud  in  praise  of  his  tact,  his  manner,  his 
method,  his  knowledge ;  they  do  not  explain  that  their  man 
finds  it  necessary  to  expatriate  himself,  but  he  is  still  young 
(thirty  or  thirty-five),  and  is  anxious  to  make  a  position. 

The  candidate  himself  takes  up  his  pen  to  speak  with 
becoming  modesty  of  his  humble  accomplishments.  He 
promises  to  ride  out  with  his  pupil,  and  "  engage  in  any 
other  exercise  that  may  be  desired " ;  all  that  he  asks  is 
that  he  may  sleep  outside  the  chateau  and  not  have  to  dine 
in  the  kitchen,  like  some  of  his  colleagues.  This  is  not 
enough  for  the  anxious  mother ;  she  would  like  to  know  if 
he  is  a  man  of  honour  and  a  gentleman.  Her  mind  is  set 
at  rest. 

For  a  long  time  these  tutors  maintained  a  certain  attitude 
of  reserve. 


THE  CHILDREN  79 

In  his  Galandra,  Bibbiena  gives  an  example  of  one  who 
is  completely  uninteresting,  speaking,  acting,  and  dressing 
like  the  rest  of  men.  But  these  young  fellows  were  men, 
and  what  is  more,  men  of  education,  not  so  foolish  as,  after 
tasting  of  a  life  of  refinement,  to  fail  long  to  recognise  its 
advantages.  Sometimes,  under  a  guileless  demeanour,  they 
suffered  temptations  the  reverse  of  philosophic:  Vegio1  calls 
them,  without  mincing  matters,  "  abominable  bucks."  They 
learnt  by  experience  how  hard  it  is  to  get  on  by  zeal  and 
earnestness,  and  how  easy  by  other  means.  They  cultivated 
literature  to  some  purpose.  No  one  thought  any  the  worse 
of  Antony  de  la  Salle,  the  austere  tutor  of  the  house  of 
Anjou  in  the  15th  century,  for  writing  The  Fifteen  Joys  of 
Marriage  or  The  Hundred  Novels,  or  of  Lemaire's2  notion  of 
elevating  the  ideas  of  the  young  Charles  V.  by  offering  him 
delicate  nourishment  in  the  shape  of  a  Judgment  of  Paris 
of  photographic  realism — a  picture  of  the  future  reserved  by 
heaven  for  princes  and  the  great  ones  of  the  earth.  Such 
things  were  read :  dissertations  on  Aristotle  were  not. 

In  proportion  as  the  women  posed  as  patrons  of  litera- 
ture, the  tutor  type  appears  in  higher  relief.  The  torrent 
of  invective  let  loose  against  them  leaves  no  room  for  doubt 
that  the  tutors  had  red-letter  days.  The  dramatists  and 
the  writers  of  novels  do  not  condone  the  airs  of  proprietor- 
ship they  assumed  in  regard  to  mothers  or  cousins.  They 
show  you  a  poor  devil  of  a  pedagogue,  a  dried-up  anatomy, 
void  of  personal  merit,  ill-featured,  grotesque,  boorish,  dying 
for  love  of  some  fair,  rich  and  distinguished  girl,  whom  he 
pesters  with  glowing  love-letters,  or  with  sonnets  spiced 
with  epicureanism.  What  peals  of  laughter  there  are  when 
he,  like  many  others,  comes  in  due  course  to  taste  the  rod  in 
pickle ! 

From  the  moment  when  Aretino,  in  his  Marescalco,  which 

1  Maffeo  Vegio,  a  disciple  and  the  biographer  of  St.  Bernardin  of  Sienna, 
secretary  of  Pope  Martin  V.,  was  a  very  eminent  humanist  at  the  beginning 
of  the  16th  century.  He  added  a  supplementary  book  to  the  Aenetd.  He 
was  ranked  much  higher  than  Petrarch.  The  book  cited,  De  educalione 
liberorum  et  eorum  claris  moribris,  often  republished  since  1491  and  issued 
in  a  French  translation  in  1508,  is  a  very  remarkable  work,  and  exercised 
a  great  influence.  It  seems,  however,  to  have  escaped  the  researches  of 
the  historians  of  education. 

2  [Jean  Lemaire  de  Beiges  (1475-1548),  historian  and  poet.  His  chief 
works  quoted  from  in  these  pages  are :  Illustrations  et  singiuarite'a  des  Gaules 
and  Le  Temjrfe  d'honneur  et  de  vertus.  ] 


80       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

appeared  in  1533,  revealed  the  dramatic  possibilities  of  such 
a  part,  the  type  was  fixed. 

Before  the  tutor  appears  on  the  scene  you  know  what  you 
are  going  to  see :  a  spectacled  pedant,  ungainly,  loutish, 
pretentious,  a  twaddling  bore,  full  of  philology  and  quota- 
tions. His  very  features  have  acquired  a  mechanical  cast 
betraying  his  habit  of  holding  forth  on  the  obvious,  as 
Montaigne  says,  or  of  extinguishing  youth  by  his  stupidity, 
his  "  hoggish  wisdom,"  to  adopt  the  words  of  Rabelais. 

Then,  in  virtue  of  a  law  of  fate,  the  glory  of  the  tutor 
waned  and  fell.  The  impulse  that  went  forth  towards 
liberal  studies  brought  so  many  rivals  into  the  field  that, 
unless  he  opened  a  private  seminary  or  obtained  a  pro- 
fessorial chair,  the  tutor  was  ruined.  His  salary  became 
diminutive,  and,  as  we  know,  the  man  who  is  poorly  paid  is 
thought  little  of.  He  may  take  all  the  pains  imaginable, 
set  impositions,  rap  knuckles,  pull  ears,  but  no  one  is 
satisfied. 

"  I  know  no  worse  blockhead  in  the  world  than  the 
scholar,  except  it  be  the  pedant." 

And  then  the  poor  "  pedant,"  full  of  gall  and  bitterness, 
withdraws  into  his  shell.  After  a  long  day  of  toil  and 
drudgery,  his  only  pleasure  in  life  is  to  get  back  to  his 
solitary  room,  and  there  spend  the  night  in  collating  notes, 
collecting  rare  phrases,  happy  turns  of  expression,  or 
hammering  out  verses,  love  poems  addressed  to  a  beauty 
whom  luckily  he  does  not  know,  or  lyrical  verses  at  a  white 
heat  of  passion.  And  these  productions  of  his  heart  (such 
of  them,  at  least,  as  Fortune  has  deigned  to  preserve)  lie  to 
this  day,  bundles  of  them,  in  the  dust  of  archives. 

Needless  to  add  that  the  tutor  considers  himself  martyred 
by  the  father.  The  father,  who  does  not  profess  to  love 
him,  treats  him  indeed,  more  or  less  openly,  as  a  tradesman 
and  a  nuisance,  and  interferes  when  the  whim  takes  him, 
finding  fault  with  this  and  that — the  boy's  talkativeness, 
his  pranks,  his  bad  companions.  He  would  like  on  the  one 
hand  less  severity,  on  the  other  more  progress.  And  then 
this  youngster,  who  calls  him  "  Sir,"  and  whom  he  always 
regards  as  a  child,  assumes  mannish  ways  and  threatens  to 
follow  at  his  heels  :  another  serious  drain  upon  his  purse  ! 
Besides,  what  is  the  good  of  so  many  courses  of  study,  of 
this  "bookish  swagger"  ?     Can't  he  learn  everything  with- 


THE  CHILDREN  81 

out  such  a  fuss  ?  What,  here  is  a  child  we  are  going  to 
launch  into  actual  life,  and  you  stuff  him  with  syllogisms, 
dates,  a  world  of  mere  lumber  !  Did  Alexander  the  Great 
learn  all  these  things  ?  He  had,  grant  you,  a  tutor  named 
Aristotle ;  ay,  and  with  a  few  good  mora]  principles  for  his 
whole  kit  he  conquered  the  world  !  True,  he  respected  the 
arts  and  sciences,  he  praised  their  "  excellence  and  elegance," 
but  was  he  ever  seen  to  grow  pale  and  bite  his  nails  over  a 
problem  in  dialectics  ?     No,  indeed  ! 1 

The  tutors  were  never  safe  from  these  annoyances,  except 
perhaps  in  the  houses  of  princes  or  kings,  because  then  they 
were  important  personages,  high  functionaries,  and  a  numer- 
ous body. 

The  mother,  on  the  contrary,  made  herself  the  friend  of 
the  tutor,  and  by  this  means  exercised  a  perceptible  influence 
upon  him.  She  surrounded  him  with  affectionate  attentions. 
They  were  two  natural  allies,  two  feeble  and  down-trodden 
creatures  who  sought  support  in  high  communings  which 
the  husband  did  not  understand.  As  a  man  of  culture  the 
tutor  leant  towards  feminism,  and  he  tasted  doubly,  for 
himself  and  for  his  pupil,  the  attentions,  the  solicitous 
benevolence,  which  a  mother  throws  about  the  work  of 
education.  The  palace  of  Louise  of  Savoy  at  Amboise  thus 
saw  a  succession  of  special  tutors  who  came  to  imbue 
Francis  I.  with  aesthetic  principles,  and  they  retained  the 
pleasantest  recollections  of  their  stay.  The  young  princess 
indeed  spoilt  them,  pampered  them,  almost;  she  had  them 
at  her  own  table,  instead  of  leaving  them  to  the  society  of 
chamberlains  and  playactors:  she  made  them  talk,  and 
talked  with  them. 

In  spite  of  all  opposition,  the  education  of  men  thus 
underwent  a  gradual  transformation  in  cultivated  countries. 
Instead  of  maintaining  their  former  attitude  of  grave 
reserve,  hardly  distinguishable  from  bashfulness,  and  of 
regarding  everybody,  especially  persons  well  on  in  years, 
with  a  distant  respect ;  instead,  notably,  of  showing  in  their 
intercourse  with  women  all  the  shades  of  respect  from  pro- 
found reverence  to  profound  courtesy,  the  majority  of  these 
young  men  made  their  entrance  into  life  without  embarrass- 
ment and  with  the  most  charming  manners.  They  put  off 
the  armour  of  social  etiquette,  they  were  docile,  pleasant, 

1  Montaigne. 
F 


82        THE   WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

graceful  in  bearing,  proficient  in  the  art  of  pleasing.  A 
multitude  of  books  on  "  civility,"  an  excellent  specimen  of 
which  came  from  the  pen  of  Erasmus,  instructed  them  in 
the  science  of  good-breeding,  formerly  somewhat  neglected. 
Moreover,  as  education  is  always  the  great  objective  of  men 
who  desire  to  exercise  a  serious  influence  on  thought,  they 
vied  with  one  another  in  propounding  theories  and  advo- 
cating each  his  own  system  in  regard  to  the  direction  of 
youth,  a  task  which  engrossed  such  men  as  Cordier,1 
Sadoleto,2  Vives,8  Luther,  Calvin,  Erasmus,  to  mention  only 
the  chief.  We  need  not  follow  here  their  far-reaching  dis- 
cussions, which  are  but  the  development  of  the  struggle 
entered  upon  between  the  idealistic  and  the  matter-of-fact 
spirits.  On  the  extreme  frontier  of  the  two  realms  Zwingle, 
established  so  to  speak  as  a  mainguard,  defends  the  German 
tactics.  Without  denying  the  amenities  of  aestheticism,  he 
declares  for  an  education  of  cloistral  severity,  for  curricula  of 
the  exact  sciences  and  logic,  and  prefers  Hebraists  or  erudite 
Hellenists  to  elegant  Latinists. 

Erasmus,  on  the  contrary,  marks  out  the  Roman  frontier. 
He  considers  that  any  effort  to  direct  the  intelligence  of 
children  into  one  rigid  channel  only  has  the  effect  of  drying 
it  up.  He  appreciates  neither  the  exhibition  of  truth  in  its 
skeleton  state,  the  system  which  flourished  in  the  schools  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  nor  the  pure  apprenticeship  to  utilitarian- 
ism to  which  Zwingle  inclines.  The  sentiment  of  the 
beautiful,  in  his  view,  offers  an  immense  advantage  in  life — 
that  of  sustaining  and  consoling  the  spirit;  in  education 
there  is  no  other  process  for  widening,  refining,  elevating 
the  faculties.4     The  new  movement  has  his  entire  approval. 

Indeed,  he  is  ready  to  go  very  far.  Instead  of  banishing 
all  thoughts  of  women  from  their  minds,  he  is  surprisingly 
ready  to  explain  to  young  men  that  there  are  two  loves,  a 

1  [A  friend  of  Calvin,  and  a  professor,  who  reduced  himself  to  beggary 
by  his  unselfish  efforts  to  improve  the  educational  methods  of  his  day 
(1479-1559).] 

2  [A  cardinal,  and  an  ardent  humanist  (1477-1547).  He  took  Cicero  for 
his  model,  and  wrote  moral  philosophy  and  poetry.  The  work  here  alluded 
to  is  his  Paedotropia.  ] 

3  [Vives  accompanied  Catherine  of  Aragon  to  England  as  her  tutor  and 
chaplain.  Siding  with  her  on  the  divorce  question,  he  had  to  leave  the 
country.     His  works  were  published  at  Basle  in  1555.] 

4  He  admits  astrology  among  the  exact  sciences. 


THE   CHILDREN  83 

good  and  a  bad,  and  to  set  them  such  subjects  for  composi- 
tion as  the  question  "ought  a  man  to  marry  or  not?" 
Hiitten1  pokes  great  fun  at  the  coy  professors  who  so 
carefully  expurgate  the  mythology,  who  would  fain  drape 
the  Muses  and  turn  them  into  angels,  or  who  compare 
Diana  to  the  Virgin  Mother. 

In  reality,  as  everybody  had  his  own  programme  of 
education,  dependent  on  no  one's  theories  or  whims,  all  this 
fine  ardour  produced  little  but  modifications  of  detail.  So 
men  remained  faithful  to  gymnastics  and  all  the  sports — 
riding,  hunting,  fishing,  tennis,  perhaps  even  to  sober 
philosophic  deambulations  in  the  style  of  St.  Gregory  of 
Nazianzen.  But  they  held  dancing  in  less  abhorrence,  and 
the  love  of  gaming  worked  havoc. 

Music  triumphed  over  its  detractors,  who  had  been  wont 
to  represent  it  as  directly  tending  towards  effeminacy  and 
voluptuous  impressibility.  Now,  on  the  contrary,  it  was 
regarded  as  a  child's  most  ennobling  avocation  and  a 
precious  resource  for  forming  his  mind.  Instruction  in 
the  principles  of  design  seemed  a  necessity  for  men  who 
were  called  to  live  among  objects  of  art,  and  who,  without 
some  practical  experience,  would  infallibly  fall  a  prey  to 
pinchbeck. 

However,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  a  too  exclusive 
development  of  the  emotional  side  of  their  nature  did 
produce,  among  certain  young  men,  untoward  and  even 
disastrous  results.  Education  had  become  very  wide- 
spread; everybody  sought  after  it,  rather  out  of  amour- 
propre  than  to  supply  needs  they  really  felt;  and  the 
result  was  that  there  was  less  anxiety  to  equip  solidly 
a  few  choice  minds  than  to  give  the  mass  a  superficial 
polish.  The  world  was  overrun  with  amiable  young  men,, 
patterns  of  social  accomplishment,  knowing  how  to  bow, 
dancing  well,  of  excellent  table  manners,  primed  more- 
over with  a  few  tags  of  Latin  or  Greek,  living  in  elegant 
idleness,  and  thus  the  pride  of  the  good  merchant  who  had 
the  honour  of  begetting  them  and  keeping  the  pot  boiling. 
Their  weak  point  was  that  they  knew  too  much  of  life  in 
their    beardless    youth:    aestheticism    had    brought    them 

1  [Ulrich  von  Hiitten  (1488-1523),  friend  of  Luther  and  one  of  the  most 
energetic  of  the  Reformers,  by  turns  soldier,  poet,  theologian,  and  politi- 
cian.    He  is  alluded  to  pemim.] 


84        THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

neither  illusions  nor  enthusiasm ;  but  they  were  past- 
masters  in  the  commercial  valuation  of  some  fashionable 
young  lady  and  her  belongings. 

At  the  age  of  fifteen  or  sixteen,  all  these  young  fellows, 
good  or  bad,  took  flight  in  the  most  diverse  directions,  and 
escaped  from  their  mother  for  good  and  all. 

She  sees  them  go !  Some,  the  smartest  of  them,  go  to 
Court  as  brilliant  pages,  all  ablaze  with  gold  and  velvet: 
the  others  into  some  chateau,  where  they  combine  the 
duties  of  head-huntsman  and  stud-groom,  and  dine  in 
the  kitchen,  hoping  to  be  mentioned  in  their  master's  will. 

Others,  maintained  by  a  more  subtle  father,  are  commis- 
sioned "to  attain  unto  the  virtue  and  honour  that  know- 
ledge gains  for  gentlemen." l  Ah  !  the  gay  young  sparks ! 
They  proceed,  at  great  expense,  to  establish  themselves  at 
Padua,  Bologna,  or  elsewhere,  and  there  the  lore  they 
gather  comes  from  profound  study  of  Signorina  Angela's 
ankles  or  Signorina  Camilla's  bright  eyes.  One  of  these 
pious  youths,  the  son  of  a  councillor  of  Paris,  dismissed 
post-haste  the  private  tutor  accompanying  him.  So  long 
as  the  lad's  purse  holds  out,  the  father  proves  indulgent, 
and  indeed  is  secretly  not  a  little  proud  of  his  heir's 
escapades.  Boys  will  be  boys.  One  facetious  father 
addresses  a  letter  to  his  son  "studying  at  Padua — or 
sent  to  study." 

Many  people  attributed  the  wildness  of  young  men  to  the 
fact  that  their  education  was  not  directed  by  women. 

Calvin  considers  that  the  young  men  were  thrown  too 
much  into  women's  society ;  Henri  Estienne 2  charges  upon 
aesthetic  education  all  the  vices  of  the  age.  This  is  going  a 
little  too  far:  it  would  he  just  as  reasonable  to  make  the 
vices  of  the  age  responsible  for  the  bad  results  of  education. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  notwithstanding  a  certain  measure  of 
progress,  the  education  of  the  sixteenth  century  did  commit 
errors  for  which  it  had  to  pay.  Discipline  was  relaxed.3 
It  was  a  common  complaint  that  studies  lost  tone  as  they 

1  Heptameron,  Tale  18. 

2  [A  16th  century  scholar  who  in  an  amusing  book  called  Apoloyie  pour 
Hirodolt  made  an  elaborate  attack  on  the  clergy  of  his  day.] 

8  "  My  pupils  do  just  as  they  please ;  most  of  the  time  they  are  digging 
the  soil,"  writes  an  unlucky  tutor,  referring  to  the  dauphin  of  France;  "I 
have  grave  doubts  whether  they'll  be  fit  for  anything  better." 


THE   CHILDREN  85 

became  more  general;1  the  new  education  took  its  pupils 
'  too  young,  forced  them  remorselessly  through  too  extensive 
curricula,  encouraged  them  to  be  content  with  a  smattering, 
gave  them  the  habit  of  not  going  deep  into  anything,  and 
made  shallow  and  paradoxical  men. 

Two  women  who  were  the  products  of  the  most  opposite 
principles,  Louise  of  Savoy  and  Anne  of  France,  were  on 
their  guard  against  this  error.  The  one  determined  to 
have  her  son  educated  under  her  own  eyes,  the  other 
undertook  the  education  of  her  future  son-in-law — a  clear 
proof  that  all  women  cannot  be  charged  with  particular  faults. 

However  paradoxical  the  idea  may  appear,  it  seems  that 
the  system  of  education  ought  to  have  been  more  completely 
revolutionised.  Either  the  old  principle  of  bringing  boys 
up  so  as  to  make  men  of  them  should  have  been  maintained, 
or  a  new  one  should  have  been  boldly  and  frankly  enun- 
ciated, namely,  that  it  would  be  well  for  a  boy  to  be  brought 
up  by  his  mother,  since  he  is  to  live  with  a  woman,  and  a 
girl  by  her  father,  since  she  is  to  live  with  a  man.  Of  this 
principle,  however,  we  nowhere  find  the  slightest  hint. 

In  this  education  there  would  have  been  something  more 
intimate,  more  just,  more  natural,  and  perhaps  more 
profitable.  You  can  tell  among  a  thousand  the  men  who 
have  been  brought  up  by  a  serious  mother,  and  the  women 
brought  up  by  a  careful  father. 

Unhappily,  the  social  customs  of  the  time  raised  an 
insurmountable  obstacle.  In  addition  to  the  fears  of  exces- 
sive sensibility  of  which  we  have  spoken,  the  rigid  family 
principle  ordained  that  the  son  should  belong  to  the  family 
and  not  to  his  mother.  He  was  a  man :  therefore  let  him 
ride  and  hunt  and  be  a  soldier !  It  was  better  to  err 
through  brutality  than  through  tenderness. 

In  reality,  many  mothers  exercised  but  an  indirect  and 
ineffective  influence  on  their  sons.  The  sons  were  too  much 
separated  from  them  and  left  them  too  soon.  Were  the 
mothers  made  for  the  children  or  the  children  for  the 
mothers?  Judging  from  the  number  of  households  which  were 
only  held  together  by  the  children,  one  might  think  they 
were  made  for  the  mothers ;  and  yet  a  woman  who  relied  tof 
much  on  this  support  was  sure  to  remain  in  cruel  loneliness. 

1  Numerous  Latin  dialogues  were  written  for  children  in  France  and 
Germany. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  EDUCATION  OF  GIRLS 

If  the  sons  were  destined  almost  inevitably  to  disappoint 
their  mothers'  hopes,  the  daughters  were  to  compensate  for 
that  disappointment.  We  must  crave  pardon  for  entering 
into  all  these  details.  It  is  impossible  to  set  forth  the  story 
of  a  woman's  heart  without  first  of  all  plumbing  as  deeply 
as  possible  the  secret  of  those  holy  passions  which  move 
women  as  mothers  and  as  daughters.  We  started  from  the 
solid  ground  of  marriage  after  the  old  style,  a  mere  physical 
and  rational  fact.  The  sensibility  of  women  begins  to 
blossom  out  on  coming  into  contact  with  physical  wretched- 
ness ;  it  creates  the  sick-nurse  and  the  alms-distributor ;  it 
is  then  that  the  mother  is  born.  Her  love  for  her  sons  has 
nothing  but  separation  to  look  forward  to ;  but  in  the  love 
of  mother  for  daughter  a  woman's  heart  finds  another  stay. 
Here  there  is  no  interference  to  be  feared  from  a  third  party. 
The  daughter  belongs  to  the  mother,  and  the  father  does 
not  even  seek  any  share  in  their  intimacy:  "Women's 
policy  hath  a  mystical  proceeding ;  we  must  be  content  to 
leave  it  to  them." 1  Let  the  father  provide  the  girl's  dowry, 
that  is  all  that  is  required  of  him.  In  the  formal  and  some- 
what Philistine  society  which  was  the  outcome  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  the  several  shares  of  the  parents  were  very  clearly 
defined. 

But  these  things  which  the  father  knew  nothing  about 
are  of  the  greatest  interest  for  us.  We  want  to  know  what 
went  on  between  mother  and  daughter,  and  how  the  women 
of  the  future  were  being  formed,  for  then  we  shall  know  also 
whether  the  mother  was  able  to  fashion  for  herself  a  lasting 

1  Montaigne. 
86 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  GIRLS  87 

joy  in  her  home,  and  whether  she  was  so  well  satisfied  with 
the  principles  on  which  she  herself  had  been  brought  up  as 
to  apply  them  to  her  daughter.  Later  on  we  shall  have  to 
treat  of  more  momentous  questions,  of  ideas  much  more 
highly  artistic  and  philosophic,  but  we  shall  meet  with  none 
from  which  a  more  thorough  knowledge  of  the  inner  work- 
ings of  feminine  souls  is  to  be  gained.  In  the  slightest 
question  of  education  all  the  social  questions  have  their 
echoes,  as  we  hear  the  roar  of  the  ocean  in  a  shell. 

Historians  are  very  far  from  agreement  in  the  information 
they  give  us  as  to  the  manner  in  which  young  girls  were 
educated  in  those  days.  An  old,  but  false,  proverb  runs: 
"  The  mother  feeds,  the  father  instructs  ";  which  signifies  in 
plain  language  that  the  mother  never  instructed,  suckling 
being  the  top  of  her  capacity.  On  the  other  hand,  as  the 
treatises  on  education  speak  only  of  the  boys,  or  at  most  of 
■  children,"  and  practically  never  use  the  word  "  daughters," 
some  historians  have  concluded  that  the  girls  were  left  to 
vegetate  and  that  their  education  was  never  considered, 
while  others,  on  the  contrary,  and  these  not  the  least  im- 
portant— such  as  Burckhardt  and  Minghetti — have  believed 
that  the  girls  merely  followed  the  same  course  as  the  boys. 

We  shall  not  traverse  these  two  opinions,  contradictory 
as  they  are,  because  they  both  appear  true  to  a  certain 
extent. 

The  question  of  education  really  depends  on  another 
question,  of  much  greater  moment,  which  we  have  set  our- 
selves to  answer  in  this  book:  What  ought  women's  life  to 
be  ?  Where  ought  they  to  seek  their  happiness  ?  And  at 
the  outset  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  a  very  trouble- 
some problem.  Is  a  woman  to  continue  to  be  married 
passively,  as  we  have  seen  her  married — to  be  left  almost  a 
slave  ?  or  is  she  to  be  put  into  a  condition  of  self-defence  ? 
Is  she  to  be  made  an  obedient  tool,  a  mirror  of  the  ideas  of 
others,  destitute  of  all  mind  of  her  own,  and  all  the  happier 
in  knowing  nothing  beyond  the  narrow  bounds  of  her  bed- 
room ?  or  does  it  seem  better  to  render  her  an  active, 
educated  creature,  with  an  individuality  of  her  own,  capable 
of  reasoning  and  acting  ?  Is  the  mother  to  remain  merely  a 
temporary  guardian,  charged  with  watching  over  a  little  girl 
for  a  master  of  undisputed  title,  who  will  form  her  and  train 
her  after  his  own  fancy,  and  to  whom  she  will  belong  at  the 


88        THE  WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

earliest  moment,  even  in  her  first  flower  ?  or  is  the  mother 
to  be  at  perfect  liberty  to  link  herself  closely  with  her 
daughter,  and,  precisely  because  the  girl  is  one  day  to  be 
given  to  another,  to  arm  her  with  independence  and  intelli- 
gence, even  although  she  knows  that  sooner  or  later  some 
portion  of  this  armour  must  be  dropped  on  the  way?  There 
is  the  whole  question.  And  on  that  question  depends  the 
education  of  girls. 

In  the  lirst  case  (that  is  if  we  adopt  the  time-honoured 
theory)  the  mother  was  preparing  a  blank  page.  She  had 
little  to  do  except  to  promote  as  hardy  a  vegetation  as  poss- 
ible, a  blossoming  out  into  strength  and  beauty,  to  maintain 
absolutely  unbroken  quietude,  to  respect  and  even  prolong 
the  days  of  childhood.1  There  is  no  need  here  for  lengthy 
dissertations:  the  system  consisted  in  proscribing  every- 
thing that  involved  the  slightest  mental  exertion,  even  in 
the  form  of  little  pastimes ;  in  preserving  an  absolute  sim- 
plicity, a  cloistral  existence;2  in  shunning  even  physical 
exercises  if  they  were  at  all  energetic.  From  the  intellectual 
standpoint  it  allowed,  on  the  artistic  side,  some  trifling  pieces 
of  needlework  (tapestry,  netting,  or  the  like) ;  music,  not 
suggestive  or  light,  but  classical  music ;  as  recreative  read- 
ing, some  elementary  books  of  religion  or  morality;  in 
science,  some  notions  of  physics,  agriculture,  medicine,  some 
philosophical  expositions  of  great  moral  questions,  such  as 
original  sin,  the  Redemption,  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
and  the  Creed  in  general.  That  was  what  had  gone  to  form 
the  little  bride,  the  robust,  sedate,  matter-of-fact,  shy  little 

1 "  My  daughter  is  of  the  age  wherein  the  laws  excuse  the  forwardest  to 
marry.     She  is  of  a  slow,  nice,  and  mild  complexion,  and  hath  accordingly 
been  brought  up  by  her  mother  in  a  retired  and  particular  manner,  so  that 
she  beginneth  but  now  to  put  off  childish  simplicity."     (Montaigne.) 
2  Quid  tibi  praecipiam  molles  vitare  fenestras  ? 
Ad  culpas  aditum  laxa  fenestra  facit. 
Libera  mens,  captiva  tamen  sint  lumina,  quando 

Hanc  animo  invenit  saeva  libido  viam. 
Cogite  fallaceis,  animus  ne  peccet,  ocellos, 

Cogite,  libertas  ne  peritura  cadat. 
Peliite  materiam,  primasque  extinguite  flammas. 

(Pontanus,  De  Liberis.) 
[•'Why  should  I  admonish  thee  to  shun  the  seduction  of  windows?  An 
unbolted  casement  is  the  door  to  vice.  Keep  the  mind  free,  but  the  eyes  in 
durance,  since  concupiscence  discovers  this  way  to  the  soul.  Restrain  thy 
eyes  from  tricks  lest  thy  soul  sin  ;  yea,  lest  thy  liberty  fall  and  perish. 
Thrust  away  the  fuel,  and  extinguish  the  beginnings  of  flame." 


THE  EDUCATION   OF  GIRLS  89 

creature  whom  at  the  beginning  of  this  book  we  saw  led  to 
the  altar.  She  was  ignorant,  but  so  much  the  better :  she 
was  only  being  born  into  life,  but  she  brought  as  her  stake 
a  solid  health  and  a  well-balanced  character  generally ;  and 
at  thirteen  years,  that  was  a  good  deal.  The  husband  would 
do  the  rest.  x 

And  it  must  not  be  imagined  that  this  system,  barbarous 
as  it  may  seem  to  some,  was  regarded  as, at  all  ill-conceived. 
It  had  numerous  friends.  The  learned  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
from  the  venerable  Egidio  Colonna x  to  the  illustrious 
Gerson,2  had  formed  no  other  idea  of  women's  needs.  Gerson 
even  enunciated  the  aphorism  (which,  however,  must  not 
be  pressed) :  "  All  instruction  for  women  should  be  looked 
at  askance."  In  this  the  philosophers  were  at  one  with  the 
physicians,  whose  advice  was  to  err  on  the  side  of  caution. 
In  support  of  their  position,  they  invoked  the  great  name 
of  St.  Chrysostom,3  and  that  of  Lycurgus  also,  who  wished 
to  prolong  the  childhood  of  young  girls  to  the  eighteenth 
year  (and  this  in  Greece),  and  to  devote  the  whole  period  to 
the  care  of  the  body. 

On  this  system,  the  mothers  could  not  form  close  ties 
with  their  daughters,  still  less  enter  into  their  life.  One 
mother,  however,  inspired  by  her  ardent  devotion  to  an 
only  daughter,  and  at  the  same  time  thoroughly  conversant 
with  the  actual  necessities  of  life — Anne  of  France — has 
shown  to  what  good  account  these  apparently  rudimentary 
opportunities  might  be  turned,  while  paying  due  respect  to 
the  advice  of  Gerson  and  the  physicians.  She  set  down  her 
views  in  a  little  work,  of  a  purely  practical  and  intimate 
character,  designed  for  her  daughter's  use,  and  written  day 
by  day  with  a  certain  desultoriness,  according  to  the  line 
her  reflections  or  her  reading  happened  to  take,  and  without 
the  slightest  intention  of  supporting  a  thesis.  This  book 
imparts  to  us  ex  abrupto  the  secret  of  her  thoughts. 

She  pinned  her  faith  to  education,  not  to  instruction ;  she 

i  [A  disciple  of  Thomas  Aquinas  :  he  died  in  1316.] 

2  [The  famous  mystic  and  theologian  (1363-1429),  who  so  stoutly  opposed 
scholasticism,  astrology  and  magic.  The  Imitation  of  Christ  has  been 
ascrihed  to  him.] 

3 "Take  care  of  your  daughters;  let  them  be  always  at  home,  gentle, 
pious,  scorning  money  and  outward  adornments.  And  thus  you  will 
preserve  riot  only  these  young  girls,  but  the  men  who  will  one  day  weil 
them,  and  you  will  assure  a  good  posterity  from  a  healthy  stock." 


90       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

desired  an  education  that  was  spontaneous  and  in  some  sort 
automatic,  which  would  result,  not  from  a  perfect  intimacy 
between  mother  and  daughter,  still  less  from  a  sentiment  of 
equality,  but  solely  from  a  kindly,  frank,  and  affectionate 
association,  of  such  a  nature  that  the  mother  would  colour 
her  child's  character  "  as  good  wine  colours  its  cask." 

This  gentle  prescription  assumes  a  wide  mental  culture  to 
begin  with,  and  a  certain  robustness  of  intelligence.  Anne 
of  France  intended  the  moral  and  philosophic  education  of 
the  girl  to  be  carried  out  with  the  aid  of  Boethius,  Plato, 
the  fathers  of  the  church,  the  ancient  philosophers,  and,  it 
need  hardly  be  said,  in  conformity  with  the  "  Instructions  of 
St.  Louis." 

On  the  other  hand  she  did  not  trouble  to  develop  the 
imagination  or  the  emotions :  she  had  a  horror  of  affectation, 
of  all  that  appeared  to  her  to  smack  of  the  studied,  the 
conventional,  the  theatrical :  she  would  not  permit  it  any- 
where, either  in  dress,  in  which  she  rejected  false  simplicity 
and  false  elegance  alike,  or  in  conversation,  studies,  or 
conduct.  She  loved  only  the  splendour  of  truth,  the 
glorification  of  the  real  in  its  noble  aspects.  It  was  her  aim 
to  temper  the  young  girl's  soul  by  instilling  into  her  the 
habit  of  searching  enquiry  and  deep  thought,  and  of  building 
her  reasoning  always  on  clear  premises  like  the  certainty  of 
death  or  the  existence  of  God. 

From  these  principles  there  resulted,  not  a  critical 
scepticism  like  that  of  Montaigne,  Pascal,  or  Descartes,  but, 
if  one  may  say  so,  a  vigorous  and  affirmative  scepticism, 
that  is  to  say,  the  absolute,  perhaps  even  harsh  determina- 
tion to  look  the  facts  of  life  fairly  in  the  face,  as  serious  but 
ephemeral  matters ;  and  to  abstain  from  giving  them 
colours,  shapes,  an  import  which  do  not  belong  to  them, 
from  throwing  a  false  halo  about  them.  As  a  drowning 
man  clings  to  a  rope,  so  Anne  of  France  clung  to  a  precise 
and  objective  morality,  which,  firmly  anchored  on  religious 
faith,  defied  discouragements  and  fatigues  as  well  as  illusions. 
Beyond  the  restless  sea  of  mundane  realities  in  all  their 
nakedness,  it  pointed  to  other  realities,  which  appeared  to 
her  just  as  clear,  just  as  positive,  and  in  which  she  found  a 
steadfast  beacon  light. 

In  thus  basing  feminine  education  on  individualism  and  a 
severe   conception  of  the  True,  Anne   feared  rather  than 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  GIRLS  91 

desired  the  intrusion  of  aestheticism.  What  was  required, 
in  her  opinion,  was  to  form  strong  women,  vigorous  in  body 
and  mind :  she  wished  to  develop  strength  of  will  and 
stability  of  character,  which  are  practical  virtues.  Assuredly 
she  had  no  personal  scorn  for  the  beautiful :  she  gave  proof 
enough  to  the  contrary.  She  loved  an  art  full  of  sap  and 
zest ;  she  was  a  subtle  connoisseur,  a  royal  patron  I  Delight 
in  beautiful  things  was  so  natural  to  her  that  she  counted 
on  transmitting  the  taste  to  her  daughter.  And  she  was 
accomplished  in  philosophy;  she  read  Plato,  a  first  step 
which  some  of  the  most  confirmed  lady  platonists  neglected. 
But  she  was  persuaded  that  the  period  of  struggle  was  only 
opening  for  women,  and  that  they  must  arm  themselves  to 
maintain  the  fight.  She  had  no  bent  towards  German 
utilitarianism — she  could  not  have  contented  herself  with 
the  studies  Luther  sanctioned,  nor  with  the  elementary 
programme  of  virtue  which  Calvin  found  all-sufficient :  at 
the  same  time,  she  had  no  greater  confidence  in  the 
idealism  of  Rome.  The  world  was  not  yet  perfect  enough ! 
She  joyfully  hailed  the  dawn,  but  did  not  believe  that 
the  day  was  yet  fully  come.  Women  must  not  be  content 
with  a  dilettante  reliance  on  impressions ;  they  must 
make  what  they  love  an  object  of  thought,  and  having 
formed  their  reasoned  conception,  must  seek  to  realise  it. 
For  them  to  be  queens  would  be  admirable  indeed;  but 
for  the  present  it  is  enough  for  them  to  escape  crushing. 
What  they  need  is  will,  and,  as  a  consequence,  intellect  and 
individuality. 

This  was  a  clear  enough  scheme  of  life.  In  Spain  the 
same  ideas  obtained  so  striking  a  success  that  people  were 
not  satisfied  with  the  compromise  devised  by  Anne  of 
France,  and  with  this  wholly  moral  education  which  would 
leave  the  daughter  for  a  few  short  years  to  her  mother. 
Circumstances  were  urgent;  there  was  no  time  to  waste; 
ideas  were  at  boiling-point :  a  part  of  the  ancient  principles, 
the  physical  and  moral  repose  recommended  by  the 
physicians,  was  sacrificed,  and  the  children  were  flung 
headlong  into  the  whirlpool.  Little  girls  sucked  in  Latin 
with  their  mother's  milk ;  then,  the  soul  being  expropriated, 
so  to  speak,  for  the  public  good,  they  were  given  a  tutor  at 
an  age  when  they  ought  to  have  been  learning  nothing  but 
how  to  walk ;  at  seven  they  were  expected  to  be  able  to 


92        THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

maintain  a  conversation,  and  at  thirteen  to  have  finished 
their  studies  and  be  ripe  for  matrimony. 

This  programme,  so  vigorous  that  at  first  blush  one  would 
be  tempted  to  think  it  a  mere  figment  of  the  imagination, 
was  not  only  propounded  but  largely  practised  by  one  of 
the  most  conspicuous  men  of  the  time — Vives,  the  tutor  of 
Isabella  the  Catholic's  daughters.  Vives  went  to  England  in 
the  train  of  Catherine  of  Aragon,  and  in  that  country  of 
matter-of-fact  aspirations  he  could  still  have  believed  him- 
self in  Spain,  so  successful  was  he  in  rousing  the  same  fire 
and  enthusiasm  for  his  ideas.  His  fervour  led  to  a  revolu- 
tion, or  rather,  as  Erasmus  said  with  a  smile,  to  a  "  topsy- 
turvydom "  in  high  society ;  the  men,  who  continued  to 
scour  the  seas  and  do  business  in  great  waters,  fell  quite 
to  the  rear,  while  the  young  ladies,  stepping  to  the  front, 
engaged  with  a  brisk  rivalry  in  marvellous  exhibitions  of 
precocity.  At  thirteen,  Lady  Jane  Grey  read  Plato  in  the 
original,  and  Mary  Stuart  delivered  in  public  her  first  Latin 
speech ;  at  fourteen,  Queen  Elizabeth  translated  a  work  by 
Margaret  of  France,  The  Mirror  of  the  Sinful  Soul.  These 
wonderfully  clever  children  were  not  confined  to  any 
particular  country,  and  the  same  breeze  fanned  the  same 
flame  from  John  o'  Groats  to  Gibraltar.  Saint  Theresa,  who 
was  bom  in  1515,  is  an  excellent  type  of  her  contemporaries. 
Bereft  of  her  mother,  and  one  of  a  family  of  twelve,  she  was 
certainly  not  the  object  of  any  special  training,  but  kept 
pace  with  girls  of  her  age ;  yet  at  six  years  she  was  already 
to  use  her  own  expression,  "  swept  away  by  a  violent  move- 
ment of  love,"  and  had  to  be  prevented  from  hurrying  to 
Africa  in  the  hope  of  being  massacred  and  winning  heaven 
cheaply.     What  singular  girls  ! 

The  thing  that  urged  them  on  was  the  general  fear  in 
which  the  husband  was  held,  the  pressing  need  of  attaining, 
ere  it  was  too  late,  a  good  condition  of  defence  and  even  of 
superiority.  The  rising  spectre  of  marriage  fascinated 
teacher  and  taught  alike.  At  ten  years  of  age,  to  tell  the 
truth,  such  personages  as  Anne  of  France  and  Margaret  of 
France  had  already  disposed  of  their  heart !  so  that  to 
overwhelm  them  with  work  was  believed  the  best  way  to 
protect  them  against  themselves.  "The  craters  of  Etna, 
the  forge  of  Vulcan,  Vesuvius,  Olympus  cannot  compare 
their  fires  to  those  of  the  temperament  of  a  young  girl 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  GIRLS  93 

inflamed  by  high  feeding,"  cries  Vives.  The  more  effectually 
to  extinguish  these  flames  Vives  reinforces  the  regimen  of 
work  with  a  course  of  cold  water  and  a  vegetable  diet,  and 
this  he  austerely  names  "the  perpetual  fast"  of  the 
Christian  life ;  he  proscribes  dancing,  and  counts  on  serious 
studies  to  preserve  them  from  vanity  and  to  widen  the 
scope  of  their  intellectual  activities.  In  short,  while  more 
sharply  accentuating  the  scientific  note  than  Anne  of 
France,  he  has  the  same  end  in  view.  Like  her,  he  is 
convinced,  passionately  convinced  indeed,  that  it  is  right  to 
set  a  straight  course  for  marriage,  having  now  only  a  half- 
hearted belief  in  the  old  ideal  of  virginity :  he  has,  further, 
so  rooted  a  horror  of  vain  sentimentalities,  affectations, 
romances,  poetry,  all  sensibility  real  or  affected,  that  he 
throws  overboard  Italian  and  French  for  his  pupils :  he 
wishes  them  to  have  wills  and  energies  of  their  own.  But 
like  a  true  Spaniard,  an  enthusiast  and  yet  a  Stoic,  he  loves 
these  warm,  ardent  natures.  He  is  a  little  like  that  lord- 
justice  who  in  his  official  tone  interrupted  a  too  pertinacious 
advocate,  but  under  his  breath  bade  him  continue.  He 
shrinks  from  the  flames,  but  sees  in  them  the  instrument  of 
regeneration.  These  little  girls  of  thirteen,  inured  to  the 
reading  of  Scripture,  tricked  out  with  history  and  ethics, 
with  Xenophon  and  Seneca,  he  sends  forth  to  the  conquest 
of  the  world,  to  fulfil  their  vocation  as  women.  He  hopes 
that  their  initiation  into  Biblical  exegesis  will  lead  them  to 
construct  a  philosophical  religion  for  themselves,  and  that 
they  will  attain  a  rational  appreciation  of  Catholicism  as 
the  source  of  justice  and  knowledge,  and  the  sole  panacea 
for  society.  That  is  the  gist  of  his  preaching  to  the 
daughters  of  Isabella  the  Catholic.  Did  Luther  himself 
probe  nearer  the  heart  of  the  matter,  or  outline  a  scheme 
more  novel  and  more  magnificent  ? 

Let  us  complete  our  portrait  of  Vives,  and  at  the  same 
time  that  of  many  a  young  woman  of  the  new  generation, 
by  adding  that  he  by  no  means  looked  down  on  the  practical 
knowledge  of  plain  cooking,  of  domestic  economy  or  the 
common  medicines.  It  might  be  thought  that  he  had  no 
ardour  but  for  the  Bible,  and  there  is  no  lack  of  ill-natured 
jesters  who  cast  a  stone  at  his  Latinist  ladies  ,*   whereas,  on 

1 "  From  a  braying  mule  and  a  girl  who  speaks  Latin,  good  Lord,  deliver 
us."    (Bouchot.) 


94        THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  contrary,  he  spoke  up  for  the  kitchen,  though  to  the 
detriment  of  dress  and  dolls.  "  What,"  he  cries,  "  is  not  a 
hand  smutted  with  coal  as  good  as  a  snow-white  hand  that 
is  open  to  everyone  ? "  It  only  needs  a  father  or  mother  to 
fall  ill^and  he  is  perfectly  happy,  for  then  you  will  see  his 
fair  Latinist  in  neat  white  apron,  bringing  a  cooling  draught 
she  herself  has  mixed,  and  bestowing  one  of  those  smiles  for 
which  one  would  gratefully  gulp  down  a  whole  druggist's 
shop.  Here,  according  to  him,  is  the  distinguishing  mark  of 
his  system :  a  practically  useful  intelligence,  and  a  physical 
as  well  as  moral  devotion. 

The  Italian  school  drew  its  inspiration  much  more  directly 
from  the  need  of  the  ideal ;  it  rejected  passion  as  full  of 
peril  and  made  mere  sensibility  its  goal.  But  it  too  pre- 
tended to  take  its  stand  on  conceptions  of  absolute  truth, 
though  more  elementary  ones  ;  and  these  it  did  not  repre- 
sent as  intellectual  acquirements,  because  it  regarded,  not 
knowledge,  but  feeling  and  judgment,  as  the  end  a  woman 
ought  to  set  before  her.  The  education  dear  to  this  school 
was  above  all  an  education  of  impressions  and  enthusiasm, 
in  which  scientific  truth  only  came  in  to  supply  ballast  and 
to  prevent  an  exaggerated  serenity,  or  an  over-confidence  in 
life.  In  its  refinement  and  elegance  this  school  preserved 
as  it  were  an  after  perfume  from  the  noble  city  of  Rome, 
where  fastidious  and  ceremonious  prelates,  gourmets  but  not 
cooks,  let  money  flow  into  their  pockets  through  immense 
spiritual  aqueducts,  and  set  about  pouring  it  away  again 
in  perfect  cascades  of  ostentation.  Hands  smutty  with  coal 
indeed  !  A  lazzarone  would  blush  at  the  thought !  There 
are  none  but  princesses  in  Italy. 

Dolce,  a  supreme  example  of  the  Italian,  took,  for  the 
formation  of  an  Italian  woman,  the  recognised  elements : 
chastity,  modesty,  reserve,  composure,  and  a  regular  study 
(this  was  to  be  particularly  free,  with  no  expurgation)  of  the 
classics  and  the  church  fathers;1  and  from  all  this  he  would 
fashion  for  you  the  sweetest  creature  imaginable. 

1  It  was  to  an  expert  in  high  culture  that  Ren^e  of  France  entrusted  her 
daughters,  in  the  person  of  Olympia  Morata,  who  was  noted  for  the  eloquent 
Latin  and  Greek  discourses  she  delivered  as  a  precocious  child  of  thirteen. 
While  still  under  fifteen,  Olympia's  pupils  were  sufficiently  advanced  to 
act  a  comedy  of  Terence  before  the  pope.  This  education  by  means  of  the 
theatre  was  completed  with  serious  readings  in  Ovid  and  Cicero,  and  the 
final  polish  was  given  by  a  Greek  monk  of  known  liberal  views,  Francesco 
Porto.     There  was  no  idleness  ot  melancholy  here. 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  GIRLS  95 

Idleness  and  melancholy  were  his  two  great  foes :  he  had 
no  hostility  to  love.  What  reason  was  there  to  abstain  from 
carefully  cultivating  a  young  girl's  capacity  for  loving, 
seeing  that  as  a  woman  she  would  find  in  it  her  chief 
resource  ?  To  reject  the  thought  of  love,  to  avoid  the  very 
utterance  of  the  word,  and  then,  like  Vives,  to  rack  your 
brains  to  create  infinite  derivatives,  was,  according  to  Dolce, 
a  childish  and  an  untrustworthy  proceeding  •  it  would  be 
much  better  to  face  the  ordeal  frankly,  and  deaden  its 
shocks  beforehand  by  anointing  oneself  with  the  healing 
balm  of  platonic  doctrine,  by  exhibiting,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  body  in  its  wretchedness,  the  vileness  of  earthly  love, 
and  on  the  other  the  beauty  of  love  divine  and  pure. 
Women  may  fall  through  passion,  but  they  can  win  salvation 
through  sensibility,  and  therefore  Dolce  nourished  them  on 
the  appropriate  classics :  Virgil,  parts  of  Horace,  Dante, 
Petrarch,  Bembo,  Sannazaro,1  and,  more  especially,  Casti- 
glione.  To  his  opponents,  however,  this  system  seemed  over- 
venturesome  ;  they  reproached  him  with  going  half-way  to 
meet  danger,  with  putting  into  hands  still  weak  the  two- 
edged  sword  which  so  often  wounds  lustier  hands.  To  this 
objection  Dolce  returned  on  behalf  of  the  beautiful  the  same 
answer  that  Vives  made  on  behalf  of  the  true.  He  was  con- 
vinced that  a  liberal  education  was  most  surely  calculated  to 
form  strong  souls,  citing  in  support  of  his  contention  Corinna 
and  a  thousand  other  old-world  heroines  rendered  impeccable 
by  culture,  and,  of  his  own  time,  the  four  daughters  of  queen 
Isabel,  pupils  of  Vives ;  all  four,  indeed,  equally  accomplished 
and  yet  equally  unfortunate — but  could  anyone  begrudge 
them  their  misfortunes  ? 

Thus,  according  to  Dolce,  abstract  or  severe  studies  were 
not  for  girls  :  "vain  and  futile  quackeries"  he  called  them, 
which  could  only  bring  them  in  subjection  to  men.  "  All  that 
is  needed  is  to  awaken  and  foster  the  faculties  which  are  in 
women."  To  rule  as  with  a  rod  of  iron,  women  need  only 
remain  as  they  are,  with  the  talents  given  them  by  nature.8 
What  is  the  good  of  teaching  them,  for  example,  the  dates 
and  the  nice  problems  of  history  ?     They  should  be  taught 

1  [An  Italian  poet,  pupil  of  Pontanus  (1488-1530).  The  Arcadia,  his  chief 
poem,  ran  into  sixty  editions.] 

2  Montaigne  (who,  however,  deduces  from  these  premises  altogether 
different  conclusions). 


96       THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

to  read  history,  to  derive  from  the  accurate  narrative  of  facts 
an  impression  of  the  poignant  emotions  and  moral  struggles 
which  the  historian  necessarily  indicates  with  a  more  or  less 
light  touch,  and  then,  linking  these  events  together  in  their 
minds,  to  get  at  the  heart  of  them,  deduce  the  lofty  moral 
principles  controlling  them.  In  philosophy  they  have  no 
need  of  great  metaphysical  principles  ;  but  what  is  import- 
ant for  them  is  to  understand  that  misery  exists,  that  there 
is  suffering  everywhere,  often  hidden  away  and  yet  only  too 
real.  Woman  is  a  fellow- worker  with  God !  It  suffices  to 
lop  off  the  thorns  which  cumber  her;  she  will  shoot  up 
naturally  towards  the  light,  sucking,  like  a  flower,  the 
earth's  sap,  which  is  love.  The  corn  which  is  to  go  to  the 
mill  and  make  bread  needs  the  plough's  rude  toil,  a  lovely 
delicate  flower  often  asks  no  more  than  a  handful  of  earth 
and  a  bountiful  sky. 

And  it  was  in  this  way  that  so  many  sweet  Italian 
women  blossomed  out,  almost  spontaneously,  delighting  in 
life,  themselves  the  J037  and  felicity  of  the  world,  all  compact 
of  poetry,  archaeology,  rhetoric,  and  philosophy — Attic 
through  and  through  at  thirteen  years.  The  efflorescence 
was  universal  save  at  Venice,  a  country  half-Germanic,  half- 
Oriental,  where  they  insisted  on  keeping  the  girls  immured 
until  their  wedding-day,  showing  nothing  of  them  but 
bundles  of  millinery  on  Sundays.  And  yet  there  do  not 
appear  to  have  been  more  angels  at  Venice  than  elsewhere, 
and  no  one  succeeded  there  in  resuscitating  the  type 
(henceforth  unknown)  of  matrons  hypnotised,  as  it  were, 
by  their  husbands'  frown  or  the  idea  of  death.  Italy 
was  peopled  with  fairy-like  creatures,  who  thought  nobly 
of  all  men  and  wore  to  admiration  the  double  ornament  of 
fine  jewels  and  a  fine  intellect.  "  A  little  girl,"  said  Bembo, 
"  ought  to  learn  Latin :  it  puts  the  finishing  touch  to  her 
charms." 

Louise  of  Savoy  brought  up  her  daughter  Margaret 
according  to  these  Italian  principles  at  a  period  when 
France  as  yet  did  not  understand  them.  Margaret  blos- 
somed like  a  flower :  she  knew  something  of  everything  (too 
much  indeed),  notably  of  philosophy  and  theology:  she 
learnt  Latin,  Hebrew,  Italian,  and  Spanish  ;  but  she  could 
speak  nothing  but  French. 

At   nine  years  of  age,  she  was  wonderfully  clever  and 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  GIRLS  97 

accomplished ;  at  thirteen,  she  inspired  so  much  admiration 
as  to  be  considered  "  rather  Persian  than  French." 

The  defects  of  the  system  were  not  at  once  perceived, 
though  these  were  developing  in  women  a  thirst  like  that  of 
Tantalus,  exciting  a  state  of  restless  agitation  and  nervous- 
ness, which  the  old  doctors  of  Gerson's  school  professed  to 
guard  against  and  which  Vives  fancied  he  had  avoided  by 
directing  their  activity  towards  a  definite  end.  People 
were  struck  only  with  the  immediate  advantages.  Erasmus 
uttered  heart-rending  plaints  about  the  little  girls  he  was 
ever  meeting  in  the  Low  Countries,  poor  ignorant  littld 
creatures,  thick-lipped,  podgy,  stuck  on  high  heels  so  as  to 
appear  grown-up,  over-dressed,  rigged  out  with  a  load 
of  ribbons  and  feathers,  with  all  the  airs  of  innocent  little 
baggages :  "  I  ask  myself,"  he  cries,  "  if  these  are  dolls,  or 
monkeys,  or  girls."  How  he  would  have  liked  to  tear  off  all 
that  flummery,  and  fill  their  beaks  with  a  little  Greek  or 
French,  or  even  a  little  Latin  ! 

A  simple  fellow  said  to  Margaret:  "Men  and  women 
have  different  functions,  but  their  virtues  ought  to  be  equal." 
He  was  making  a  mistake ;  the  virtues  of  women  ought  to 
be  superior. 

But  if  women  believe  that  it  is  their  mission  to  rule 
instead  of  to  obey,  or,  at  any  rate,  that  the  obedience 
they  owe  has  well-defined  limits;  if  they  are  no  longer 
the  burden  which  a  father  used  to  get  rid  of  as  soon  as 
possible,  and  which  a  husband  received  as  his  absolute 
property,  body  and  soul ;  if  they  desire  to  count  for  some- 
thing 3  if  marriage  is  regarded  as  the  union  of  two  persons 
equally  free,  as  the  close  and  not  the  commencement  of 
education  ;  if  the  wife  is  no  longer  the  pupil  of  her  husband, 
and  it  is  considered  better  for  her  to  come  to  him  fully 
instructed :  then  a  very  natural  consequence  wil  1  inevitably 
ensue,  whatever  may  be  thought  or  said  :  women  will  marry 
later,  will  insist  on  exercising  a  choice  as  men  do,  and  on 
laying  down  their  own  conditions :  they  will  in  this  way 
imagine  that  they  have  greater  freedom  and  are  probably 
making  a  better  bargain,  for  they  have  become  women  of 
sense. 

The  fortunate  discovery  was  made  that  Lycurgus,  in  the 
main,  considered  twenty  years  the  best  age  for  marriage  ; 
with  the  result  that  in  the  most  aristocratic  families,  and 

G 


98        THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

those  most  swayed  by  tradition,  they  waited  with  the  most 
perfect  resignation  until  the  seventeenth  year,1  while  ladies 
of  exceptional  courage  held  that  it  was  "  modem  style  "  to 
marry  much  later.  Margaret  of  France  was  not  married  till 
she  was  thirty-seven. 

This  reform,  important  as  it  was,  did  not  end  in  making 
what  we  should  regard  as  a  happy  girlhood  possible. 

However  the  Italian  theory  might  wreathe  life  with  roses 
and  preserve  a  happy  ignorance  of  physiological  problems,  it 
was  not  easy  for  a  French  girl  to  reach  that  point  and  retain 
this  beautiful  innocence,  surrounded  as  she  was  by  people 
who  called  a  spade  a  spade,  idealising  things  no  more  than 
in  the  days  when  she  was  married  as  soon  as  born. 

Girlhood  was  not  a  delightful  fiction  which  permits  infinite 
hopes  to  be  cherished, and  keeps  realities  hidden;  it  was  rather 
an  apprenticeship ;  and  after  all,  since  the  wife  has  a  personal 
mission  to  accomplish  in  the  world,  which  will  consist,  so  to 
speak,  in  patching  and  renovating  hearts  that  are  rent,  this 
apprenticeship  seems  as  necessary  to  her  as  to  a  laundress 
or  a  dressmaker. 

The  art  cannot  be  learnt  more  successfully  than  in  maiden- 
hood. 

From  the  moment  this  was  admitted,  it  is  correct  to  say, 
girls  received  the  same  education  as  men :  with  this  quali- 
fication, that  their  education  was  more  thorough,  because 
they  made  a  later  beginning  in  life. 

In  the  first  place,  they  had  male  teachers,  or  even  a  tutor. 
Margaret  of  France,  like  her  brother,  was  taught  only  by 
tutors — a  singular  anomaly  at  a  time  when  women  plumed 
themselves  on  their  superiority,  and  one  which  we  shall  not 
seek  to  explain.  Humanists  with  the  highest  admiration  for 
woman's  intellect  held  governesses  in  horror,2  and  allowed 
no  discussion  about  the  monopoly  of  instruction ;  even  in 
Spain,  the  country  of  learned  women,  Vives  insisted  on 
instruction  by  men. 

And  yet  the  market  was  not  overstocked  with  women's 
tutors ;  the  part  usually  fell   to  more  or  less   second-rate 

1,1  Let  us  retard  the  age  of  marriage,"  cries  M.  Legouv4,  "if  we  wish 
girls  to  exercise  free  choice  and  live  free  lives. " 

2  [Praeter  naturam  est,feminam  in  masculos  habere  imperium.  (Erasmus. ) 
"  'Tis  against  nature  for  a  woman  to  have  rule  over  males."]  "  I  allow 
woman  to  learn  ;  to  teach,  never."    (Bruno.) 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  GIRLS  99 

persons,  who  accepted  it  light-heartedly  enough;  even  in 
princely  houses  there  was  considerable  difficulty  in  keeping 
a  man  of  real  earnestness. 

These  young  fellows  readily  transformed  themselves  into 
friends  and  comrades :  Brantome  accuses  them  of  a  thousand 
irregularities,  and  goes  so  far  as  to  match  them  with  the 
physicians  and  apothecaries.  Some  of  them  were  known, 
it  appears,  to  elope  with  their  pupils,  but  that  we  must 
believe  to  have  been  purely  casual,  and  their  gaiety  to 
have  taken,  as  a  rule,  a  more  delicate  form.  Eustorg 
de  Beaulieu1  smilingly  reminds  one  of  his  pupils,  now  a 
staid  wife  and  mother  at  Tulle,  of  the  time  when  she  raved 
about  her  lessons,  and  said  she  would  rather  go  to  the 
clavecin  than  to  confession.  Another  pupil  of  his,  the 
young  Helen  Gondy  of  Lyons,  called  him  in  fun  "  her 
Hector,"  a  title  which  he  accepted  on  the  distinct  under 
standing  that  he  was  not  stupidly  to  die  for  her,  "  like  tho 
other  Hector."  A  third,  Mademoiselle  de  Tournon,  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  making  a  bishop  of  this  excellent,  jovial, 
amiable  professor;  but  this  time  Eustorg  raised  objections, 
and  declared  flatly  that  he  was  sure  his  skull  was  too  thick. 

And  so  Dolce's  advice  was  followed ;  melancholy  was 
banished.  But  I  am  not  sure  that  very  fine  distinctions 
were  drawn  between  the  two  kinds  of  love,  or  that  the 
young  masters  possessed  the  delightful  art  of  developing 
only  the  fancy  and  the  softer  qualities.  In  France  and 
elsewhere,  to  all  appearance,  they  rather  treated  their  fair 
pupils  in  masculine  fashion,  with  a  fearless  handling  of 
ideas ;  that  at  least  is  the  impression  we  get  from 
Erasmus'  dialogues,  The  Girl  and  the  Lover,  The  Youth 
and  the  Courtesan.  Brantdme  taunts  them  with  a  certain 
tendency  to  make  special  use  of  the  risky  passages  in  the 
Bible  and  their  authors  for  teaching  theology  and  an  elegant 
style. 

In  this  way  the  young  girls  attained  a  perfect  inde- 
pendence of  mind.  They  cannot  even  be  compared  with 
the  American  girl  of  to-day,  for  the  old  hardy,  somewhat 
wild  French  stock  had  undergone  a  wonderful  grafting 
with  Italian  refinement.  Many  of  them,  having  reached 
a  certain  age,  pursued  their  studies  with  marvellous  gusto , 
Petrarch  and  Erasmus  they  thought  rather  poor  stuff,  pre- 
1  [A  poet  of  Lyons,  who  lived  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century.  ] 


100      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

f erring  to  work  at  Poggio1  and  Boccaccio.  Their  style  of 
talk  was  intrepid !  Ah !  there  was  no  standing  on  cere- 
mony with  them  !     Fun  was  fast  and  furious. 

They  devoured  romances,  novels  and  plays :  these  fine 
intrigues,  these  riotous  passions  seemed  to  them  to  con- 
stitute the  ideal  life.  They  were  demi-vierges.  "With 
all  these  lascivious  romances,  spotless  virginity  will  be 
unknown." 

To  describe  the  indignation  and  grief  of  old-fashioned 
people  at  this  sight  is  impossible.  "  I  would  rather  see  a 
girl  deaf  or  blind,"  cries  Vives,  "  than  thus  overstimulated 
to  pleasure."  Of  course  it  was  pleaded  that  the  artistic 
instincts  were  being  satisfied !  But  all  these  romances  bore 
but  little  likeness  to  the  subtle  analyses  of  our  days,  which 
are  sometimes  masterpieces  of  philosophy :  they  were  a 
tissue  of  adventures  all  equally  untrue  to  life.  Vives  did 
not  understand  how,  if  only  from  the  point  of  view  of  taste, 
girls  of  any  intelligence  could  go  into  raptures  over  such 
extravagances :  a  knight  who  is  left  for  dead,  but  comes  to 
life  on  the  next  page ;  a  hero  who  massacres  a  hundred  foes 
single-handed ;  nor  how  they  could  worship  as  a  demi-god 
the  author  of  such  trash.  He  begs  the  mothers  for  pity's 
sake  to  interfere,  to  take  the  trouble  to  glance  through  a 
book  before  leaving  it  to  their  girls ;  but  the  mothers  are 
accustomed  to  live  their  own  life,  and  besides,  a  lady  of 
fashion  has  so  many  occupations !  He  beseeches  the 
preachers  for  help,  waxing  almost  indignant  when  he  hears 
them  pompously  stringing  together  their  platitudes  on 
dogma  instead  of  boldly  attacking  questions  of  living 
interest  and  condemning  books  that  are  absurd  or  of  evil 
tendency.     But  the  preachers  go  on  preaching. 

Anne  of  France  took  a  more  dispassionate  view  :  she  saw 
clearly  enough  that  girls  ought  sometimes  to  put  aside  the 
church  fathers,  if  only  for  the  pleasure  of  going  back  to 
them,  and  she  did  not  despair  of  finding  a  practical  solution 
of  the  difficulty.  Her  dream  was  a  very  simple  one — the 
dream  that  recurs  again  and  again  and  yet  remains  but  a 
dream  :  namely,  to  have  good  romances  for  young  girls, 
pure,  high-toned  stories,  replete  with  the  practical  philosophy 

1[One  of  the  most  active  of  the  Italian  humanists  (1380-1459).  He 
brought  many  ancient  mss.  to  Rome,  and  translated  Xenophon  and  other 
Greek  writers.     His  conti  are  as  obscene  as  some  of  Boccaccio's.  ] 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  GIRLS  101 

of  life,  and  at  the  same  time  interesting,  dramatic,  thrilling. 
She  has  left  us  a  specimen,  somewhat  archaic  indeed,  of 
what  she  desired  :  a  historical  romance  founded  on  a  passage 
in  Froissart  about  an  unfortunate  captain  of  Brest,  one 
M.  du  Chatel,  whose  son  is,  with  flagrant  bad  faith, 
threatened  with  death  by  the  English  if  he  does  not  betray 
the  town  into  their  hands.  This  eminently  patriotic  subject 
is  the  groundwork  of  a  little  story,  short,  simple,  illustrated 
with  a  lair  number  of  pictures,  and  in  every  way  innocuous. 
In  the  opening  scene,  Madame  du  Chatel  swoons;  further 
on,  however,  it  is  she  who,  like  a  true  woman,  has  all  the 
strength  ot  character,  and  cheers  her  trembling  husband 
with  words  worthy  of  a  Roman  matron,  or  with  magnificent 
appeals  to  the  divine  mercy,  "although,"  as  she  says, 
"  children  are  in  a  special  sense  the  sons  and  daughters  of 
their  mothers."  (How  touching  is  this  claim,  interpolated 
quite  incidentally !)  So  the  story  proceeds  with  alternations 
of  strength  and  weakness.  On  coming  to  after  a  long 
swoon,  the  poor  mother  learns  that  her  son  is  dead.  "God's 
will  be  done ! "  she  says,  without  a  tear ;  "  may  our  Lord 
receive  his  soul ! "  And  then  she  goes  and  dons  her  mourn- 
ing, and,  as  soon  as  she  is  alone,  weeps ! 

And  here,  so  please  you,  you  have  a  story  for  young  girls! 

Unluckily,  for  a  girl  of  eighteen  or  twenty  life  is  no 
longer  "  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  on,"  and  as  a  rule 
the  romances,  good  or  bad,  are  at  last  thrown  into  the  shade 
by  a  certain  practical  romance  in  which  she  must  needs  play 
her  part,  and  which  demands  her  whole  attention. 

Not,  assuredly,  that  all  this  led  the  young  ladies  to  gild 
the  pill  or  modify  their  first  conception  of  marriage  ;  on  the 
contrary,  the  more  they  considered  the  matter,  the  more 
they  weighed,  in  as  just  a  balance  as  men,  the  advantages 
against  the  disadvantages.  Very  often,  princesses  of  the 
blood  royal  loved  simple  noblemen,  or  even  men  of  lower 
rank:  they  never  married  them.  It  was  too  well  known 
that  love  and  marriage  were  two  different  terms,  and  that 
certain  old  books,  preserved  in  the  libraries,  maintained  the 
theory  that  married  women,  "  possessing  what  maids  seem 
o  seek,"  should  remain  at  home  and  never  again  exhibit 
themselves  for  the  pleasure  of  others,  or  even  for  their  own. 
Formerly  a  girl  of  ten  years,  repressed  and  secluded,  could 
picture  marriage  as  a  source  of  "  liberty  and  pleasure  "  ;  and 


102      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

these  blessings  once  secured  are  sedulously  guarded.  You 
must  be  grateful  to  men  for  giving  you  their  name  and 
fortune,  of  course  ;  but  some  men  are  so  odd  !  It  is  impos- 
sible to  take  too  many  precautions.  Many  an  excellent 
young  man,  pleasant  euough  to  all  appearance,  may  turn 
out  an  insufferable  husband. 

And  so  it  was  with  mingled  prudence  and  dilettantism 
that  these  fair  sixteenth-century  Americans  set  out  in  quest 
of  the  Golden  Fleece.  Little  hampered  by  parents  who 
thought  their  whole  duty  was  done  when  they  paid  over 
the  dowry,  they  learnt  how  pleasant  it  was  to  take  life  into 
their  own  hands,  to  show  themselves  in  society,  to  talk, 
laugh,  dance,  frolic — live,  in  a  word,  without  a  by-your- 
leave  to  anyone.  And  yet  the  Latin  delicacy  and  grace 
betray  themselves  in  various  prejudices :  to  practise  archery, 
to  pad  themselves  for  a  pass  with  the  foils,  or  merely  to 
have  their  photographs  taken  as  naiads — these  resources 
were  not  yet  open  to  them !  The  poor  things  could  only 
triumph  by  their  charm  and  enthusiasm,  quite  in  the  Latin 
way,  at  the  risk  of  rubbing  off  a  little  of  their  bloom  here 
and  there. 

Outcries  came  from  the  dowagers:  What!  throw  them- 
selves at  men's  heads  in  that  way !  how  scandalous !  and 
how  silly !  Do  they  think  then  that  men  are  so  stupid  as 
not  to  consider  serious  qualities  ?  For  their  amusement 
indeed  they  like  the  coraing-on  disposition,  but  not  for 
marriage :  it  is  Cinderella  that  attracts  Prince  Charming. 
Anne  of  France  cites  an  illustration  in  point :  three  young 
Germans  of  the  highest  distinction  arrived  one  day  from  the 
heart  of  their  distant  wilds  with  the  sole  object  of  wedding 
the  three  maids  of  Poitiers,  of  whom  marvellous  tales  were 
told.  It  was  a  terrible  shock  when  they  found  themselves 
each  face  to  face  with  his  own  fair  damsel.  The  first  had 
so  squeezed  her  waist  that  she  well-nigh  fell  inanimate  into 
the  arms  of  her  wooer,  who  was  thoroughly  put  out ;  the 
second  chattered  like  a  very  magpie  ;  the  third  rather 
naively  displayed  a  sentimentality  in  the  latest  mode ;  and 
the  upshot  was  that,  with  never  a  word  to  one  another,  the 
three  Germans  were  soon  stride  for  stride  footing  it  back  to 
Germany.  And  Anne's  conclusion  is  very  reasonable : 
"Would  it  not  have  been  better  to  cultivate  a  staider 
manner  ? " 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  GIRLS  103 

But  it  remained  to  be  proved  whether  a  staider  manner 
•would  be  right  after  all,  and  whether  a  princess,  of  however 
high  descent,  could  indulge  in  the  luxury  of  waiting  at  the 
chimney-corner  until  the  man  of  her  dreams  was  pleased  to 
appear.  Unhappily  the  contrary  was  the  general  belief. 
Someone  has  remarked  that  if  men  do  not  often  marry  the 
girl  who  pleases  them,  they  do  not  always  marry  the  girl 
who  displeases  them.  And  that  is  just  the  reason  flirtation 
held  its  own. 

The  art  of  flirting  is  a  very  subtle  one,  and  yet  it  is 
incredible  how  little  time  was  required  to  bring  it  to  per- 
fection. Everybody  had  to  do  with  it :  even  princesses 
wanted  to  fancy  that  they  chose  their  husbands. 

The  young  girl  "  came  out  "  into  the  world  in  two  ways. 
If  she  had  no  mother,  or  her  parents  found  it  convenient 
to  separate  themselves  from  her,  there  was  in  France  a 
patriarchal  custom,  peculiar  to  that  country,  which  consisted 
in  the  girl's  entering  the  service  of  a  "dame"  or  "  demoiselle" 
of  good  repute.  So  highly  was  this  custom  esteemed,  that 
Anne  of  France  recommended  her  daughter  to  conform  to  it 
should  occasion  arise,  although  the  heiress  of  the  duchy  of 
Bourbon  had  certainly  no  need  of  entering  anyone's  service 
to  push  her  way  in  the  world. 

Anne  herself,  and  Anne  of  Britanny,  thus  kept  "  schools  of 
manners  " — a  sort  of  fashionable  boarding-school,  where  the 
young  men  never  addressed  the  girls  but  on  bended  knee  in 
the  ancient  style,  and  where  the  somewhat  cloistral  austerity 
seemed  mitigated  by  the  belief  that  so  excellent  a  place  and 
so  well  guaranteed  a  virtue  could  not  fail  to  tempt  the  most 
fastidious  husbands.  But  this  institution,  intended  to  serve 
as  a  bulwark  against  the  new  manners,  floated  along,  on  the 
contrary,  in  their  current :  Catherine  de'  Medici's  "  flying 
squadron,"  as  it  was  called,  completely  lost  the  character  of 
a  boarding-school,  and  discharged  its  functions  with  free- 
lance recklessness. 

For  the  most  part,  it  was  at  her  mother's  side  that  a  girl 
set  off  in  quest  of  a  husband.  The  plan  of  operations  varied 
so  greatly  that  no  one  will  expect  us  to  unravel  its  principles. 
All  these  young  girls  matched  one  another  in  chic.  They 
never  spoke  to  their  mothers  without  bleating  "  Madame 
ma  mere,"  or  lisping  "  By  your  favour,  madam,"  like  so 
many  well-behaved  silly  sheep.     Many  of  them  were  for 


104      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

ever  showing  their  teeth  :  they  had  a  laugh  for  anything — 
a  phrase,  a  fly,  a  gentleman  with  a  bald  head.  One  laughing 
sent  the  others  into  fits  too,  and  that  was  thought  remark- 
ably witty.  They  were  experts  in  the  "  sedate  management 
of  their  green-blue  eyes,  full  of  softness  and  opened  neither 
too  little  nor  too  much."  They  wore  lovely  dresses — monu- 
mental robes  which  yet  seemed  rather  an  accompaniment 
than  a  vesture  for  their  limbs.  Some  old  folk  (  vives,  for 
example)  professed  horror  at  their  ring-loaded  fingers,  their 
pierced  ears  (a  barbarous  custom,  to  be  sure !),  those  light, 
delicate  touches  of  the  brush  with  which  they  did  up  the 
face,  and  those  subtle  perfumes  wafted  from  no  one  knows 
where :  in  all  this  they  saw  woful  error,  and  even  worse, 
rank  folly.  They  sharply  reprimanded  the  mothers,  re- 
proaching them  for  a  multitude  of  things:  for  withering 
the  natural  goodness  and  charitableness  of  their  daughters 
by  fostering  expensive  habits ;  for  inciting  them  to  a  false 
luxury,  all  vulgarity  and  tinsel,  which  is  neither  comely 
nor  virtuous,  and  helps  not  a  whit  towards  matrimony — 
at  least  it  is  to  be  hoped  so,  for  it  would  be  a  great 
imprudence  to  depart  so  far  from  reality,  and  to  entice  a 
man  into  marriage  by  means  of  the  rouge-pot  and  sham 
charms.1 

But  materfamilias  is  a  lady  of  fashion,  accustomed  to 
shine  in  society,  and  seeing  no  harm  in  it ;  further,  she 
is  too  good  a  mother  not  to  desire  success  for  her  offspring, 
not  to  applaud  a  venturesome  flight.  She,  too,  has  dreams 
of  a  Prince  Charming ;  she  has  her  enthusiasms,  which  take 
clear  and  definite  shape  in  her  mind  as  positive  hopes.  As 
for  the  father,  he  becomes  cantankerous,  and  considers  only 
the  expense  of  the  game ;  he  is  quite  of  the  dowagers' 
opinion,  and  thinks  well  enough  of  men  to  believe  that  they 

1  Nil  est  simplicitate  priua. 
Haec  placet ;  haud  ulla  est  quaesitae  gratia  formae, 

Quae  studio  peccas,  simplicitate  places, 
Nulla  est  ornandi,  nulla  est,  mihi  crede,  parandi 

Gloria,  naturae  est  forma,  nee  artis  opus ; 
Ars  odio  digna  est,  ubi  nullo  fine  tenetur. 

(Pontanus,  De  amove  conjugedi.) 
["  Nothing  comes  before  simplicity.  That  is  pleasing  ;  there  is  no  grace 
in  artificial  beauty.  By  artifice  thou  wilt  err,  by  simplicity  thou  wilt 
please.  There  is  no  glory  in  adornment,  none,  believe  me,  iu  farding 
oneself ;  beauty  is  the  work  of  nature,  not  of  art.  Art  is  hateful  when 
not  kept  within  bounds."] 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  GIRLS  105 

pay  most  attention  to  serious  qualities.  And  so,  in  order 
to  compose  once  for  all  this  perpetual  domestic  wrangle, 
a  great  wag,  Coquillart,1  proposes  to  clothe  the  girls  in 
parti-coloured  dresses,  one  colour  for  the  father,  another  for 
the  mother. 

When  a  girl  makes  a  successful  start,  certain  mothers  are 
seized  with  a  sort  of  fanaticism ;  we  are  wrong  in  calling 
it  fanaticism :  it  is  really  a  new  outburst  of  good-hearted- 
ness  and  the  passion  for  self-sacrifice  of  which  women  are 
possessed,  for,  if  they  reflected,  they  would  clearly  realise 
that  personally  they  have  nothing  to  gain  by  a  brilliant 
match  for  their  daughters. 

Some  of  them  push  self-sacrifice  to  the  point  of  servility ; 
they  efface  themselves,  walk  in  the  rear,  with  the  meek  and 
deprecating  bearing  of  a  waiting-maid.  That  is  a  form  of 
goodness  which  the  women  of  former  days  would  not  have 
understood — Anne  of  France  choked  at  the  mere  mention 
of  it.  She  had  commanded  armies,  bearded  diplomatists, 
made  men  her  puppets,  checkmated  her  judges,  manipulated 
her  States-general,  set  her  whole  country  in  a  ferment 
without  a  sign  of  feeling:  but  here  she  lost  command  of 
herself :  "  It  is  tomfoolery  ...  it  is  overweening  presump- 
tion in  the  daughter,  and  in  the  mother  sheer  madness." 

Kisses,  caresses,  secret  trysts,  presents,  love-letters, 
showers  of  rondeaus  and  ballads,  stolen  glances,  songs 
more  than  gay — all  this  made  French  flirtation  an  ex- 
quisite pastime,  essentially  intoxicating  in  its  charm.  The 
good,  modest  young  damsel,  who  would  cast  down  her  eyes 
in  the  street,  was  not  a  whit  shocked  at  a  pretty  broad 
jest  in  the  company  of  men : 

Aucunes  sont,  qui,  en  humbles  manieres, 
Avec  les  folz  jouent  leurs  jarreti^res.2 

— Bouchet. 

In  the  evening  by  candle-light,  ensconced  in  some  nook  of 
the  spacious  fire-place,  young  men  and  girls  would  sit  un- 
ceremoniously on  one  another's  knees,  laughing  and  talking 
nonsense.  People  who  have  got  past  these  maidenly  frolics 
themselves  find  it  more  and  more  difficult  to  become  recon- 

1  [A  vigorous  and  witty  social  satirist  (1421-1510).] 

'[Some  maidens,  in  their  modest  way, 
With  fools  their  garters  stake  at  play.] 


106      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

ciled  to  them.  Jean  Bouchet  feelingly  describes  them  in  his 
book,  Les  Regnara  traversant  les  voies  pe'rilleuses,  at  a  period 
when  the  art  was  still  in  its  infancy.  Young  men  easily  get 
absolution :  they  naturally  profit  by  opportunities  of  amusing 
themselves ;  and,  besides,  theirs  is  the  passive  part.  But  the 
girls  !  how  venturesome  they  are,  how  light-heartedly  they 
chip,  at  least  in  spirit,  the  poor  remnant  of  their  semi- 
virginity  ! 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  flirtation  will  in 
time  lead  to  the  introduction  of  the  love  element  into 
marriage.  These  damsels  are  by  no  means  anxious  to  allow 
the  principle  of  earthly  love — that  is  to  say,  a  germ  of  divorce 
— to  steal  into  their  married  life.  Their  ideal  consists  in 
falling  in  love  with  a  man  of  wealth  and  established  position, 
and  so  far  it  has  a  reassuring  character,  worthy  of  respect. 
At  this  stage  of  their  life  they  are  working  for  themselves, 
as  later  they  will  have  to  work  for  humanity.  M.  Bourget 
has  discovered  in  America  the  different  varieties  of  the 
sixteenth-century  flirt :  the  professional  beauty ;  the  girl 
of  ideas,  who  stumps  a  platform  and  stands  for  the  parish 
council;  the  "jolly  good  fellow";  the  girl  of  well-balanced 
philosophical  mind ;  the  coquette  ;  the  girl  of  ambitions  ;  all 
are  ambitious  and  to  some  extent  coquettish,  and  even  the 
philosophical  girl  gives  the  ideal  only  a  secondary  place. 

But  amid  this  charming  round  of  coquetting  and  artless 
sensibility,  passion  sometimes  flashes  out — passion,  at  once 
the  great  peril  of  the  Latin  races  and  their  eternal  charm. 
One  may  be  convinced  that  the  heart  has  been  subdued  by 
cold  calculation,  and  that  love  is  laid  under  a  spell  by  means 
of  philosophy  ;  but  they  burst  their  bonds  !  And  here  the 
parts  are  not  distributed  as  one  would  wish :  this  generation 
is  about  to  inflict  a  wound  on  platonism  I  Often  it  is  the 
wife  who,  instead  of  serving  as  an  idol,  gives  herself  to  love. 
In  the  terrible  veins  of  French  and  Spanish  women  there 
flows  a  blood  which  they  do  not  always  succeed  in  master- 
ing, the  old  blood  of  knights  or  peasants;  they  bruise 
themselves  against  the  invisible  mail-armour  of  modern 
life. 

In  the  second  act  you  would  almost  invariably  see  the 
serving-maid  appear  on  the  scene — the  "confidante"  of  the 
plays,  a  good  soul,  as  indulgent  to  everyone  as  she  is  to 
herself,  devoted,  and  not  more  thick-headed  than  becomes 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  GIRLS  107 

her,  thoroughly  convinced  that  she  has  something  to  gain 
from  every  intrigue.  The  mother  has  her  own  affairs  and 
her  dignity  to  attend  to,  which  keeps  her  in  ignorance  of 
what  is  going  on;  whilst  with  the  maid  there  are  private 
conversations,  mutual  unbosomings,  a  companionship  in 
study  of  the  facts  of  life.  Lucky,  indeed,  if  some  smart 
lackey,  let  in  on  the  strength  of  his  ingenuous  manner, 
does  not  put  in  his  word! 

Saint  Theresa  thus  plunged  with  masterful  strokes  into 
the  swirling  tide  of  existence,  with  the  aid  of  a  serving- 
maid,  at  the  age  of  fifteen.  Her  father  placed  her  in  a 
convent,  but  the  walls  were  no  barrier  to  her :  she  performed 
unheard-of  feats,  broke  through  the  roof,  wrenched  away 
the  gratings.  She  had  to  be  despatched  to  a  more  reposeful 
situation — to  an  uncle  stuffed  with  the  fathers  of  the  church, 
a  man  after  Vives'  own  heart ;  from  his  care  she  returned 
with  a  passion  for  religion,  and  escaped  once  more,  this  time 
to  enter  a  Carmelite  convent  in  the  teeth  of  opposition. 
She  was  now  in  her  nineteenth  year,  and  her  trials,  repent- 
ances, revolts  were  only  just  beginning ;  eighteen  more  years 
of  struggle  were  required  ere  this  tempestuous  character 
was  at  last  soothed  definitively  into  mildness. 

Unhappily,  the  girls'  little  love  affairs  sometimes  had 
graver  consequences.  Plays  and  novels  show  us  situations 
awkward  enough :  in  one  of  Parabosco's  comedies,  the 
mother  arrives  a  little  behind  the  fair. 

Laughing,  boisterous,  pitch-forked  into  life,  the  poor 
children  do  not  pretend  to  have  the  ferocious  virtues  that 
men  have  not.1  Is  that  their  fault,  since  they  have  been 
brought  up  like  men  ?  If  they  go  wrong,  it  is  not  from 
a  bent  towards  wrong ;  it  is  as  the  birdling  errs,  buffeted 
by  the  storm  on  its  first  escape  from  the  nest.  To  avoid 
risk  altogether,  they  would  have  to  remain  for  ever  under 
the  mother's  wing,  as  the  early  educators  wished. 

In  the  sixteenth  century,  there  were  still  good  people 
who  wished  girls  to  become  deaf-mutes  again,  and  constitute 
Our  Lady  "  the  guardian  and  warder  of  their  hearts."  But 
such  talk  was  not  very  effective. 

Wise  counsellors  and  practical  preachers  who  advocated 
"  retreats,"   and    knew    the   world,    addressed    themselves 

1  Nifo  sincerely  admires  princesses  who  go  to  their  husbands  virginc* 
intaclat. 


108      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

directly  to  the  girls  and  sought  to  touch  the  chord  of  self- 
interest.  The  grave  Jean  Raulin,1  from  the  eminence  of  one 
of  the  most  fashionable  pulpits  in  Paris,  reasoned  with  them 
somewhat  as  follows :  "  To  wed  a  widow,  well  and  good ! 
There  is  no  fuss,  no  golden  ring,  no  benediction,  but  withal 
it  is  a  marriage:  whilst  with  a  counterfeit  young  maid 
presenting  herself  at  the  altar — !  Ah !  fair  ladies,  guard 
your  purity  to  the  very  hour  of  your  espousals,  whether 
you  be  earthly  or  spiritual  brides!  That  is  the  precious 
treasure  you  must  at  all  costs  save,  and  for  many  reasons : 
because  of  human  frailty,  according  to  the  words  of  the 
2nd  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  '  We  have  our  treasure  in 
earthen  vessels ';  because  of  its  inestimable  value,  according 
to  the  words  of  Ecclesiasticus,  chapter  xxvi..  '  There  is  no 
price  worthy  of  a  continent  soul ';  because  of  the  insepara- 
bility of  the  mischief,  according  to  the  words  of  St.  Jerome, 
'  God  can  do  all  things  save  restore  a  lost  virginity.'  " 

Many  could  not  help  regretting  the  free  country  life,  and 
fancied  that  fidelity  to  a  more  rigorous  system  of  education 
would  have  yielded  better  results.  Of  a  truth  it  would 
have  been  better  to  make  women  frank  creatures  of  passion 
than  coquettes  or  mere  worldlings.  But  an  honest  glance 
at  the  life  of  rural  folk  was  enough  to  assure  the  observer 
that  utilitarianism  does  not  elevate  the  manners.  Yes,  seen 
from  a  distance,  the  ways  of  country  folk  seem  compact 
of  smiles  and  caresses,  love  and  candour :  pigs  and  cows 
meet  in  the  meadow  or  at  the  fair;  lovers  too  meet,  at 
church,  at  a  dance,  after  those  winter  parties  so  hotly 
denounced  by  the  preachers,  nay,  every  morning  and  even- 
ing if  their  hearts  bid  them  ;  and  they  can  exchange  little 
presents,  meet  to  scrape  the  fiddle  or  twang  the  guitar, 
without  anyone  finding  fault,  save  perhaps  a  rival  with 
whom  they  are  quits  for  a  few  rounds  at  fisticuffs,  or  at 
most  a  thrust  with  a  knife.  A  fashionable  young  girl,  you 
may  be  sure,  would  not  be  horrified  at  the  exchange  of 
a  few  good  swashing  blows  for  her  ;  she  is  apt  to  regard 
life  as  too  tame.  It  remains  to  discover  whether  to  reduce 
life  to  its  primitive  simplicity  is  really  to  elevate  it.  The 
idealists  thought  not. 

l[A  doctor  of  the  Sorbonne  and  a  Dominican  (1443-1514).  In  one  of  his 
sermons  occurs  the  story  of  the  church  bells,  repeated  by  Rabelais  a  propos 
of  the  marriage  of  Pan  urge.] 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  HUSBAND  AND  THE  VARIOUS  WAYS  OF  SLIPPING 
HIS  YOKE 

The  most  troublesome  question  to  be  settled  in  regard  to 
feminism  is  that  of  the  authority  of  the  husband.  Legally, 
the  husband  was  head  of  the  household,  an  idea  which 
found  ready  acceptance  among  the  lower  ranks  of  society, 
and  which  the  people  applied  with  its  habitual  logic.  It 
won  warm  approval  from  Rabelais.  Nothing  struck  men 
as  more  grotesque  than  a  husband  suspected  of  having 
allowed  his  wife  to  get  the  upper  hand.  An  artisan  of 
Bourges,  at  whom  some  unpleasant  neighbours  hummed  a 
refrain  about  a  woman  who  thrashed  her  husband,  on  that 
ground  alone  brought  against  them  an  action  for  slander. 

In  all  sincerity,  the  husband  considered  himself  an  abso- 
lute owner,  the  lord  and  master,  the  head  and  soul  of  his 
wife,  that  "feminine  and  feeble  creature"  whom  he  con- 
descended to  take  to  his  hearth,  and  who  owed  him,  in  the 
name  of  God  and  the  law,  "  perfect  love  and  obedience." 
As  to  the  wife,  she  was,  so  to  speak,  stepping  into  a  railway 
train  driven  without  her  assistance.  She  had  paid  her  fare, 
and  wedlock  stretched  itself  rigidly  in  front  of  her  like 
the  driver's  footboard,  a  place  for  manliness  and  nerve,  but 
unromantic  in  the  extreme.  What  matters  to  her  the 
scenery  along  the  line  ?  The  rippling  sea  may  chant  its 
amorous  strains,  the  spring  sun  may  dot  the  wilds  with 
flowers,  the  tempest  may  sweep  through  the  gorges,  but  the 
track  stretches  on  and  on  in  its  direct  unswerving  course, 
with  never  a  thrill,  never  a  smile,  unfaltering,  unreflecting, 
mathematically. 

What  was  the  wife  but  the  principal  servant,  or  the  eldest 

109 


110      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

of  the  children  ?  She  only  addressed  her  master  with  the 
most  profound  respect.  "  Sir,"  she  would  say  to  him,  or 
"  My  good  friend."  She  was  his  "  wife  and  subject "  ;  if  she 
wrote  to  him  she  signed,  "  your  humble  obedient  handmaid 
and  friend."     But  her  husband  spoke  to  her  stick  in  hand. 

The  stick !  that  was  the  only  argument  the  women  under- 
stood. 

Bon  cheval,  mauvais  cheval,  veut  l'eaperon, 
Bonne  femrae,  mauvaise  femrae,  veut  le  baston.1 

Preachers  spoke  of  the  thrashings  with  a  smile.  Needless  to 
say,  the  police  did  not  interfere.  Margaret  of  France  did 
indeed  think  it  a  little  vexatious  that  a  lady  honoured  with 
the  king's  attentions  like  the  beautiful  Madame  de  Chateau- 
briand should  still  receive  correction  of  this  sort  under  her 
husband's  roof-tree. 

But  this  was  not  all :  the  authority  of  the  husband  was 
often  coupled  with  the  tyranny  of  the  mother-in-law.  The 
husband's  mother,  especially  if  she  was  a  widow,  rendered 
life  horribly  galling  and  difficult. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  married  woman,  no  matter  to  what 
lengths  her  husband  might  carry  his  ill-usage,  knew  well 
that  there  was  no  ~»dress  for  her  anywhere.  Unhappy  wives 
sometimes  in  the  madness  of  despah  fled  from  their  homes 
in  the  most  shocking  plight,  only  to  be  remorselessly  dragged 
back  by  their  father,  brother,  or  cousins,  as  a  result  of  the 
appalling  freemasonry  between  men.  To  rely  on  her  own 
mother  was  out  of  the  question  for  a  wife ;  the  two  women 
belonged  to  two  distinct  houses,  with  a  barrier,  a  great 
gulf  fixed  between  them.  In  the  early  days  of  wedlock  a 
husband,  not  to  appear  a  tyrant,  and  because  he  was  in  no  way 
inconvenienced,  would  allow  his  wife  now  and  then  to  visit 
her  mother ;  but  he  contrived  that  these  visits  became  gradu- 
ally rarer,  and  when  he  was  not  at  home,  a  wife  careful 
of  her  repose  and  dignity  would  never  cross  her  mother's 
threshold  without  first  writing  to  him :  "  If  it  be  your  good 
pleasure,  I  would  fain  go." 

That  was  a  woman's  life.  As  it  was  not  all  smiles  and 
rosewater,  there  was  good  reason  for  marrying  the  girls  off 
ear/y,  before  they  had  learned  to  care  one  way  or  another, 

i  [A  woman,  a  dog,  and  a  walnut  tree, 
The  more  you  beat  'em,  the  better  they  be.] 


THE  HUSBAND  111 

their  equipment  being  a  few  simple  maxims  inculcating 
obedience,  and  some  odds  and  ends  of  medical  knowledge. 
Wives  who  owed  their  training  to  Vives  could  not  but 
be  very  unhappy,  according  to  the  principles  of  marriage  held 
by  Vives  himself.  For  Vives  not  merely  approved  of  early 
marriages,  he  was  also  one  of  those  who  believed  that  the 
wife  was  created  for  the  husband,  and  an  irresponsible  and 
inferior  being ;  he  looked  at  the  husband  as  someone  to  bring 
her  out.  Erasmus,  Bouchet,  Dolce  himself,  nay,  everybody 
had  much  the  same  impression. 

The  supremacy  of  the  husband  was  the  sacred  ark ;  bold 
indeed  would  be  the  person  who  dared  lift  a  hand  to  it ! 
So  in  modern  times  we  have  seen  aesthetes,  like  Ruskin, 
capable  of  every  possible  audacity  but  that.  Ruskin  does 
not  understand  women,  and  yet  he  has  gone  out  of  his  way 
to  exalt  their  role  in  the  world;  but,  as  soon  as  he  comes 
face  to  face  with  the  husband,  he  loses  countenance,  his 
candour  vanishes,  his  words  become  cold  and  colourless. 

How  is  one  to  explain  this  singular  phenomenon,  that  so 
many  good  and  even  generous-minded  men,  after  expressing 
a  heart-felt  sympathy  with  the  sufferings  of  women,  after 
proclaiming  their  intelligence  and  their  right  to  live,  falter 
and  hide  their  heads  when  the  question  of  liberty  at  home  is 
raised  ?  It  is  not  because  they  believe  there  is  no  more 
to  be  said.  La  Rochefoucauld  declares  that  "  there  are  few 
good  wives  but  are  tired  of  their  calling,"  to  which  it  would 
be  easy  to  reply,  "  There  are  few  good  wives  whose  calling  is 
not  tiring."  But  what  is  to  be  done  ?  No  one  is  inclined 
to  go  like  Plato  to  the  root  of  the  matter  and  suppress 
marriage  altogether.  Marriage  obviously  necessitates  a 
husband ;  it  is  a  vexatious,  clogging,  disagreeable  necessity, 
maybe,  but  there  are  no  visible  means  of  escaping  it.  A 
wife  too  is  necessary;  well,  once  a  man  and  woman  are 
united  in  wedlock,  one  of  the  two  must  needs  hold  the  reins. 
There  are  many  reasons,  even  physical  ones,  why  a  woman 
should  not  undertake  to  earn  bread  for  the  family  and  to 
flog  the  husband.     And  so  the  husband  retains  that  right. 

But  if  we  go  a  little  deeper  into  the  psychology  of 
domestic  life  in  the  sixteenth  century,  we  shall  note  other 
important  phenomena,  pointing  to  a  different  conclusion. 

To  begin  with,  investigating  facts  from  the  outside,  who 
was  it  that  complained  of  marriage  ?     The  man  ;  always  the 


112      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

man.  In  actual  working  the  woman  found  compensations, 
or  at  least  advantages  in  it.  For  her  it  was  a  state  leading 
to  boundless  possibilities  if  only  she  cared  to  open  the  door. 
The  more  ardent  paladins  of  feminism,  indeed,  were  often 
disconcerted  by  her  outwardly  conciliatory  attitude  towards 
it.  But  the  husband,  married  though  he  was,  could  not 
forget  that  setting  up  an  establishment  had  involved  the 
turning  his  back  upon  life.  His  chains  appeared  to  him,  if 
not  heavy  (to  him  they  were  not  heavy),  at  any  rate  the 
sign  of  a  monotonous,  unvarying  servitude.  In  the  words 
of  an  old  ballad,  the  monk  may  change  his  order,  the  canon 
his  stall,  the  official  his  functions, 

But  we  that  be  poor  married  men 
Can  neither  go  up  nor  down. 

If  we  enquire  of  the  spouses  themselves,  we  find  that  the 
disagreements  and  difficulties  rarely  sprang  from  the  larger 
facts — those  that  were  regarded  as  irreparable. 

Heaven  seems  to  have  taken  care  to  arm  us,  in  regard 
to  important  questions,  with  a  veritable  long-suffering. 
There  are  fools,  it  is  true,  who  seriously  think  of  keeping 
their  wives  under  lock  and  key,  not  reflecting  that  no  better 
means  could  be  devised  for  making  them  desperate  and 
leaving  them  at  the  mercy  of  Tom,  Dick  or  Harry — the  first 
passing  officer.  Such  men  only  get  their  deserts.  But 
there  are  also  shrewd  men  who  keep  their  eyes  shut  to 
what  it  is  best  not  to  see:  everybody  advises  them  to  do 
so,  or,  what  is  better,  gives  them  every  assistance.  There 
must  be  a  special  providence,  even,  watching  over  the  wives.1 
A  wife,  on  the  contrary,  can  hardly  remain  in  ignorance 
of  her  husband's  laxities,  for  these  most  often  manifest  them- 
selves in  the  broad  daylight,  and  sometimes  under  his  own 
roof.  Many  stories  might  be  told  about  chambermaids  such 
as  we  read  of  in  Scripture,  but  a  little  too  mercenary,  to 
be  sure :  for  the  courts  showed  so  much  generosity  in 
assessing  the  damages  due  in  such  circumstances  that  artless 


'8 


1  In  the  long  run  the  best  things  become  wearisome  :  men  at  last  believe 
they  are  sacrificing  themselves.  "Christ  died  only  once  for  His  church  ; 
we  die  every  day  for  our  wives,"  is  the  heartfelt  cry  of  a  husband ;  to 
which  a  lady  retorts  :  "  Go  to  the  wars,  then,  and  lie  for  a  month  on  the 
bare  ground  ;  and  you  won't  be  sorry  to  get  back  to  your  good  bed  !  Men 
only  appreciate  their  comforts  when  they've  lost  them.  '  (Heptameron, 
Tale  54. ) 


THE  HUSBAND  113 

little  Chloes  have  been  known  to  bamboozle  the  judges  and 
profit  handsomely  by  a  mishap  that  was  wholly  imaginary. 

Id  Italy,  men  of  the  world  had  a  sure  and  simple  custom, 
which  consisted  merely  in  buying  a  young  slave-girl.  In 
the  market  of  Venice,  a  pretty  Russian,  a  fair  Circassian,  a 
well-built  Tartar  girl  between  twenty-five  and  thirty  years 
of  age  would  fetch  from  six  to  eighty-seven  ducats.  It 
needs  no  showing  how  well  this  institution  was  suited  to 
platonism ;  the  most  eminent  platonists  did  not  disdain  it. 
The  mother  of  Carlo  de'  Medici  was  a  lovely  Circassian  girl, 
purchased  in  this  way  by  the  grave  and  aesthetic  Cosimo. 
It  would  never  have  occurred  to  a  wife  to  desert  her  home 
for  such  a  grievance  as  this ;  to  do  so  would  have  made  her 
a  general  laughing-stock.  She  might  feel  keen  inward 
suffering ;  perhaps  her  heart  would  close  a  little  more 
towards  the  earth  and  open  out  towards  heaven ;  but  this 
experience  would  be  of  use  to  her,  and  a  woman  who  was 
genuinely  an  idealist  would  almost  rejoice  at  it.  It  would 
teach  her  to  show  a  firm  and  lofty  front  to  the  world,  to 
live  among  her  ideals,  to  form  a  low  estimate  of  men. 

Domestic  quarrels  really  spring  from  the  crabbed  sour 
virtues,  the  insufferable  respectabilities.  Men  are  hard  to 
please.  One  moment  they  find  a  wife  in  the  way j  the  next 
they  expect  her  to  be  perfect.  She  ought  every  morning, 
as  an  old  author  explains,  to  put  on  the  slippers  of  humility, 
the  shift  of  decorum,  the  corset  of  chastity,  the  garters  of 
steadfastness,  the  pins  of  patience,  and  so  on ;  but  it  is  by 
no  means  proved  that  in  such  a  case  a  husband  would  not 
think  his  wife  a  little  over-dressed. 

The  wife,  too,  is  up  in  arms  about  mere  trifles — her 
husband's  commonplace  soul,  his  narrowness,  his  material- 
ism, his  egotism,  his  gross  old-bachelor  ways.  Her  real 
grievances,  to  say  nothing  of  her  fancied  ones,  are  innumer- 
able. One  woman  finds,  instead  of  the  "  morning  dew  "  of 
her  dreams,  that  she  has  espoused  a  lumpish  lout.1    Another, 

i  Femme  bonne  qui  a  mauvais  mari 
A  souvent  le  cceur  marry. 

•  •  •  •  • 

Femme  aime  tant  comme  elle  pent, 
Et  homme  comme  il  veut. 

— L.  de  Lincy. 
[A  good  woman  with  a  bad  husband  has  often  a  sore  heart.  .  .  .  Woman 
loves  as  much  as  she  can  ;  man  as  much  as  he  will.] 

H 


114      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

brought  up  in  a  part  of  the  country  where  hunting  was  the 
stock  topic  of  conversation,  feels  aggrieved  if  her  husband 
tries  to  engage  her  practical  interest  in  literature  or  music, 
the  result  of  which  is  so  complete  a  discord  that  the 
husband  at  last  packs  her  off  to  her  father,  who  promptly 
sends  her  back  again.  Another  lady  is  wretched  because 
her  good  man  loses  his  appetite,  and  in  bed  does  nothing 
but  sigh ;  on  this  foundation  she  builds  a  whole  world  of 
suppositions,  and  finishes  by  making  life  impossible  to  the 
poor  man,  who  is  all  the  time  at  a  loss  to  know  why  :  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  he  has  been  worried  about  an  investment. 
There  are  some  women  odious  because  of  their  incessant 
chattering,  their  tempers,  their  vanity.  Many  women  are 
desperately  fond  of  contradicting  their  husbands,  tormenting 
them  with  pin-pricks.  At  table  a  husband  inadvertently 
poured  water  into  his  wife's  glass.  The  lady  handed  the 
glass  to  a  footman,  saying  hotly :  "  When  it  is  dry,  I  will 
ask  for  it  back."1  These  are  the  things  which  destroy 
domestic  happiness,  which  poison  a  man's  life  ("  wine  and 
women  have  their  poison,"  says  an  old  proverb),  which 
disgust  and  shrivel  the  heart  of  a  woman  and  drive  her  to 
a  life  away  from  her  home,  in  pilgrimages  or  what  not.  A 
man  does  not  need  to  be  a  saint  to  bear  with  a  woman  of 
easy  virtue,  but  only  a  saint  can  endure  a  wearing  woman. 

And  so  what  is  wanted  in  domestic  life  is  a  great  deal  of 
prudence  and  wisdom,  and  as  little  as  possible  of  illusions 
and  passion.  Marriage  is  the  most  sacred  bond  in  the 
world,  but  only  so  long  as  it  is  not  strained.  To  yield  to 
the  temptation  of  loving  would  be  fraught  with  great  peril ; 
that  is  the  forbidden  fruit.  Champier,  a  philosophical 
physician  of  the  time,  calls  it  fatal :  it  kills.  Leaving  out 
of  account  the  physical  vicissitudes  of  life,  the  spirit  of  man 
is  too  fickle  to  permit  him  safely  to  stake  his  life  on  one 
head.2     Of  this,  Europe  had  a  terrifying  proof. 

Philip  the  Fair  was  a  notorious  lady-killer ;  and  his  wife 
Joanna,  like  a  genuine  Spaniard,  loved  him  to  distraction. 
On  one  occasion  when  he  was  travelling  in  the  Netherlands, 

1 A  woman,  irritated  at  her  husband  reading  in  bed,  calls  out  to  the 
servant :  "  Ah  well !  Bring  me  my  distaff !"  (Billon,  Lt  Fort  inexpugnable 
de  Vhxmneur  du  sexe  fiminin). 

2  "  He  who  loves  not  him  by  whom  he  is  loved  is  regarded  as  a  homicide, 
and  not  merely  a  homicide,  but  a  committer  of  sacrilege  and  a  thief." 
(Champier,  De  vraye  Amour). 


THE  HUSBAND  115 

she  worried  herself  into  a  sort  of  prostration.  One  wild 
bitter  night,  as  November  nights  are  in  Navarre,  this  poor 
Joanna,  seized  with  a  sudden  hallucination,  rushed  out  half- 
clad  into  the  courtyard  of  the  castle  of  Medina  del  Campo. 
People  hurried  up  to  her,  and  the  governor  stopped  her  and 
ordered  the  gate  to  be  shut ;  but  the  unhappy  woman,  her 
eyes  starting  from  her  head,  clung  to  the  gate,  and  no 
human  strength  could  tear  her  away.  When  morning 
came  she  was  still  there,  panting  and  shivering,  with  wild, 
sunken  eyes.  Her  mother,  Queen  Isabella,  who  was  lying 
ill  at  Segovia,  despatched  an  admiral  and  an  archbishop  in 
hot  haste  to  the  castle,  but  neither  the  archbishop  nor  the 
admiral  succeeded  in  getting  the  poor  mad  thing  away  from 
her  gate.  They  only  managed,  with  great  difficulty,  to 
induce  her  to  enter  an  adjacent  shelter  for  the  following 
night.  Only  the  Queen  was  able  to  put  an  end  to  this 
distressing  scene,  the  memory  of  which  thrills  Spain  to  this 
day.  Yes,  La  Bruyere  has  well  said :  "  Women  go  to 
extremes  !  They  are  better  or  worse  than  we."  There  lies 
their  danger.  They  would  assuredly  do  well  to  beware  of 
their  ecstasies,  and  to  keep  above  or  below  the  husband 
with  whom  it  is  their  lot  to  live. 

If  they  are  reasonable  and  resigned,  like  those  of  whom 
we  have  to  speak,  not  believing  in  the  necessity  of  a  matri- 
monial passion,  then  the  humanists  resume  their  dulcet 
strains.  They  have  no  intention  of  bringing  about  a  violent 
rupture,  but  make  their  appeal  to  finesse. 

The  old  type  of  the  hectoring  husband,  even  with  his 
bludgeon,  is  no  longer  a  terror.  No  one  is  so  likely  to  play 
a  puppet's  part  as  the  man  who  fancies  he  is  monarch  of  all 
he  surveys.  The  foolish  fellow  is  so  convinced  of  his 
superiority  that  he  never  perceives  the  slender  cords  by 
which  he  is  led.  He  works  like  an  ox,1  and  his  wife  calls 
him  a  selfish  beast  and  curmudgeon.     She  croaks  of  the 

1 II  se  commence  a  soucyer 

Et  a  chagrin  s'associer. 

II  plaint  la  teste,  puis  les  dents, 

Et  a  les  oreilles  pendans 

Ne  plus  ne  moins  comme  un  lymier. 

— B.  de  Colltrye. 
[He  begins  to  fume  and  fret, 

Becomes  sworn  brother  to  regret ; 

Headache,  toothache  he  bemoans, 

Chapfallen  he  sighs  and  groans.] 


116       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

workhouse  if  things  are  Dot  going  well  with  him,  while  if 
everything  is  going  smoothly  she  "  cockers  and  cossets  him," 
and  then  gets,  not  a  beating,  but  a  dress  or  a  blouse.  She 
has  tears  or  smiles  as  occasion  serves,  and,  if  need  be, 
practises  her  blaudishments  on  the  friends  of  the  dear  man. 
She  wheedles  even  Heaven  itself,  for  all  that  is  required  to 
ensure  peace  is  to  bring  the  shirt  that  her  lord  and  master 
is  to  wear  on  Sunday  into  contact  with  the  altar  during 
Friday's  mass,  and  there  is  no  difficulty  in  that.  It  is 
commonly  said  that  "  a  woman  is  easy  to  manage  provided 
'tis  a  man  that  takes  the  trouble  " ;  a  man  is  still  easier  to 
manage  provided  a  woman  is  good  enough  to  take  him  in 
hand.  In  short,  the  women  had  long  before  this  quietly 
juggled  away  this  harassing  domestic  problem.  That  is 
why,  despite  the  bogey  of  principles,  the  women  thought 
highly  of  marriage.  They  reconciled  themselves  to  obedi- 
ence, so  long  as  they  did  not  obey.  For  the  same  reason 
the  warmest  friends  of  women  found  no  better  means  of 
combating  marriage  than  to  defend  it.  The  men  alone 
girded  at  it,  because,  accustomed  in  their  bachelor  days  to 
eat  their  own  cake,  they  did  not  easily  get  into  the  habit  of 
working  for  a  little  community. 

Erasmus  has  very  cleverly  summed  up  the  situation  in  the 
form  of  a  dialogue  between  a  young  bride  and  a  matron  of 
sense  and  sobriety.1 

The  former  makes  loud  outcry.  "What  a  hell  is  mar- 
riage ! "  she  exclaims,  "  what  a  slave's  business !  And  for 
whom,  ye  gods !  For  a  gambler,  a  brute,  a  rake !  'Twould 
be  better  far  to  sleep  with  a  pig  ! " 

The  other  soothes  her.  She  must  take  her  husband  as  she 
finds  him,  that  is  to  say,  a  coarse  animal,  a  sort  of  elephant, 
to  be  tamed  with  a  lump  of  sugar.2  She  must  appear  to  give 
in  to  him  about  trifles,  to  put  up  with  some  of  his  whims  and 
eccentricities,  and  above  all  to  lay  in  a  large  stock  of  good 
temper  and  never  be  idle  or  dull,  for  the  husband  has  a 
perfect  horror  of  being  bored,  perhaps  because  he  is  such  a 

1  Dialogus  de  malrimonia. 

*  "  You  have  been  to  seek  a  little  school-miss,  an  angel  who  dared  not  lift 
her  eyes,  and  who  to  all  appearance  was  candour  to  the  finger-tips.  .  .  . 
She  was  thinking  things  over  :  she  was  enticing  you  into  her  trap,  because 
your  rank  and  fortune  suited  her,  but  determined  at  the  bottom  of  her  soul 
to  give  you  a  '  combing  '  later  :  she  says  in  confidence  to  her  friends,  '  randy 
steeds  need  breaking  in '."     (Jean  d'lvry :  Les  Secretz  et  Loix  de  mariage). 


THE   HUSBAND  115 

bore  himself,  and  sulkiness  upsets  him,  especially  if  he  is 
sulky.  What  she  must  do  is  to  leave  him  what  he  has,  and 
give  him  what  he  lacks,  those  charming  possessions  with 
which  the  new  system  of  civilisation  has  endowed  women. 
She  may  even  add  a  little  affection,  and  then,  one  fine  day, 
she  will  be  struck  with  astonishment  (for  men  do  not  shine 
at  finesse)  to  see  this  rough  husband  of  hers  at  her  feet,  and, 
instead  of  considering  her  a  nonentity,  taking  her  for  the 
image  of  God.  From  that  moment  she  possesses  the  affection 
she  has  sought ;  and  the  task  is  not  very  difficult. 

Truth  compels  us  to  add,  however,  that,  apart  from  this 
moral  recipe,  another  circumstance  contributed  to  give  the 
women  greater  importance  in  conjugal  life.  In  France,  as  in 
every  country  where  men  are  the  ruling  spirits,  they  were 
not  fond  of  giving  the  girls  a  dowry,  or  at  all  events  they 
gave  them  the  smallest  possible  allowance.  When  the  girls 
married,  they  received  a  sum  representing  in  a  way  what 
would  some  years  before  have  been  called  their  "  night-cap," 
but  what  was  then  styled  a  "chaplet  of  roses,"  and  they 
renounced  all  claim  on  the  inheritance.  Accordingly  a  rich 
man  did  not  think  it  at  all  extraordinary  to  wed  a  girl  without 
a  fortune,  since  that  was  the  usual  thing.  Louis  de  la 
Tre'moille  married  Gabrielle  de  Bourbon  on  those  terms. 
Further,  there  was  not  the  same  difference  between  large, 
middling  and  small  fortunes  as  there  is  to-day.  With  an 
income  of  three  or  four  thousand  livres,  equal  to  £3000  or 
£4000  to-day,  a  man  was  thought  a  nabob.  The  husband, 
then,  brought  the  money,  and  in  addition  he  guaranteed  a 
contingent  jointure  on  his  own  property,  so  that  it  was  really 
a  home  of  his  providing  that  the  woman  entered.  A  man  in 
those  days  knew  nothing  of  that  pride  now  universally  felt 
in  wedding  a  millionaire's  daughter  from  Cincinnati,  or  even 
from  Paris. 

To  marry  money  struck  people  as  shameful,  almost  in- 
famous. A  husband  supported  on  his  wife's  income  was  the 
object  of  heartfelt  commiseration,  and  an  establishment  so 
organised  seemed  unworthy  of  the  name.  No  sarcasm  was 
keen  enough  for  the  classical  "son-in-law  of  Monsieur  Poirier,"1 

1  [Title  of  a  brilliant  comedy  by  Emile  Augier  and  Jules  Sandeau,  pro- 
duced in  1854.  M.  Poirier  is  a  wealthy  retired  cloth  merchant  who  has 
married  his  daughter  to  a  spendthrift  marquis  in  the  hope  of  getting  a 
peerage  through  his  influence.] 


118       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  dapper  lordling,  all  genealogy  and  sport,  whose  sole 
accomplishment  is  a  knack  of  plunging  deep  into  debt,  from 
which  his  worthy  father-in-law  (who  made  his  money  in 
treacle)  toils  behind  the  scenes  to  extricate  him. 

On  the  contrary,  Monsieur  Poirier  was  highly  esteemed  in 
industrial  countries — the  Low  Countries,  for  example,  while 
as  to  the  Italians,  they,  openly  and  unashamed,  regarded  big 
dowries  as  at  once  legitimate  and  desirable.  They  had  the 
courage  of  their  opinion — for  instance,  that  physician  of 
Pistoja  who  had  to  choose  between  two  girls,  one  of  whom 
was  warranted  a  sensible  creature,  while  the  other  was  less 
sensible,  but  richer  by  three  hundred  crowns.  The  doctor 
did  not  hesitate  an  instant  in  choosing  the  richer,  for  in  his 
opinion  the  risks  were  equal,  and  the  difference  pointed  out 
between  them  was  not  worth  a  few  crowns.  No  Italian  was 
at  all  loth  to  marry  a  woman  who  brought  him  a  dowry 
large  enough  to  live  on.  At  Florence  fifty  crowns  a  year 
would  almost  keep  a  household  of  moderate  tastes,  and  a 
woman  of  the  lower  middle-class  as  a  rule  received  a  dowry 
of  two  or  three  thousand  florins,  which  yielded  an  income 
of  at  least  a  hundred  and  fifty  florins.  The  Visconti  and 
fche  Sforza,  by  means  of  dowries  which  were  by  all  accounts 
colossal,  got  their  daughters  into  the  principal  royal  houses 
of  Europe.  In  short,  the  Italian  system  continued  to  exercise 
a  wonderful  fascination  even  over  outsiders,  and  in  starting 
on  the  expeditions  to  Italy  more  than  one  French  noble 
fancied  that  a  rich  wife  would  be  the  reward  of  his  prowess. 

It  is  not  very  surprising  that  these  ideas  at  length  over- 
came all  resistance  in  France.  Louis  XI.,  who  was  a  pupil 
of  the  Sforza,  did  much  in  this  as  in  other  things  to  snap  the 
chains  of  the  old  traditions.  We  have  elsewhere  related  how 
lightheartedly  he  made  and  unmade  marriages,  with  the  sole 
object  of  rewarding  various  adventurers  at  the  expense  of 
the  most  honourable  families. 

Louis  XII.,  on  the  contrary,  set  himself  passionately  to 
oppose  these  new  manners.  Although  he  plumed  himself  on 
his  chivalry  as  much  as  anyone,  he  did  not  admit  that  the 
heat  of  passion  could  excuse  the  abduction  of  a  young  girl, 
even  if  she  were  rich — and  in  such  cases  she  was  almost 
always  rich.  His  firmness  did  not  prevent  some  picturesque 
exploits ;  but  the  authority  of  the  church,  with  its  strong 
weapon  the  canon  laws,  lent  him  aid. 


THE   HUSBAND  119 

We  have  moreover  had  occasion  to  show  elsewhere  how 
much  difficulty  Charles  VIII.  had,  after  the  event,  in  getting 
the  legitimacy  of  his  marriage  with  the  heiress  of  Brittany 
acknowledged.1 

And  so  it  is  that,  at  the  epoch  of  women's  triumph,  we  find 
in  France  two  distinct  species  of  husbands.  The  first,  with- 
out shutting  their  eyes  to  the  importance  of  money,  refused 
to  make  it  the  principal  question  in  marriage.  Undoubtedly 
it  was  unfortunate  if  the  wife  came  quite  empty-handed,  and 
in  such  a  case  a  girl  ran  some  risk  of  the  "  pain  "  of  remaining 
an  old  maid  or  falling  into  an  unhappy  plight.  The  most 
insignificant  workgirl  set  her  heart  on  getting  a  little  dower 
together,   even  by  methods  not  altogether  innocent,2   and 

1  [Charles  had  been  solemnly  betrothed  to  the  daughter  of  Maximilian  of 
Austria,  and  Anne  of  Brittany  had  been  wedded  by  proxy  to  Maximilian 
himself.  Both  repudiated  their  contracts,  and  their  alliance  united  Brittany 
to  the  crown  of  France.] 

aCf.  the  following  ballad  by  Alione  : 

Qui  veut  ouir  belle  chanson 
D'une  fillette  de  Lyon 
Qui  d'amour  fut  requise, 
,  Ale  houe  ! 

En  venant  de  l'^glise. 
Mais  elle  en  fut  reprise  ! 
Ale  houe  ! 

Un  bon  copain  lui  voulut  donner 
Cent  florins  pour  la  marier, 
Mais  (Pourvu)  qu'elle  fut  s'amie. 

Ale  houe ! 
Prenez-les,  je  vous  prie  ; 
De  cceur  les  vous  octroie. 

Ale  houe  ! 

A  sa  mere  s'en  conseilla, 

Qui  lui  dit  que  bien  la  gardera 

De  cette  maladie. 

Ale  houe  ! 
II  peut  bien  dire  pie, 
Car  il  ne  l'aura  mie. 

Ale  houe  ! 

"  Les  amoureux  du  temps  present 
Font  des  promesses  largement, 
Et  montrent  main  garnie. 

Ale  houe ! 
Mais  folle  est  qui  s'y  fie  : 
Trop  codte  la  folie  ! 
Ale  houe!" 


120       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

we  know  that  the  purses  of  princesses  dribbled  out  a  benefi- 
cent response  to  this  desire.  But  many  marrying  men 
were  quite  content  to  be  fobbed  off  with  some  sort  of 
equivalent.  Thus  Louis  XII.  created  Francois  de  Melun 
Count  of  Epinay  to  induce  him  to  marry  Louise  de  Foix ; 
and  Louis  de  la  Tre'moille  gave  twelve  hundred  livres  to  his 

La  fillette  ne  voulut  pas 

Son  conseil  croire,  en  celui  cas  ; 

Car  elle  eut  plus  grant  joie, 

Ale  houe ! 
De  gagner  sa  monnaie, 
Cent  florins  de  Savoie. 

Ale  houe ! 

Cent  florins  sont  beaux  et  luisants ; 
S'elle  eust  fille  vint  et  cincq  ans, 
Voire  toute  sa  vie, 

Ale  houe ! 
Toute  sa  fillerie 
N'en  vauclrait  la  moitie. 

Ale  houe ! 

[Who  lists  to  hear  a  famous  ditty 
All  on  a  maid  of  Lyons  city, 
Who  as  she  came  from  church  one  day 

(Hey  nonny  !) 
Was  sought  in  love  the  usual  way — 
And  sore  she  smarted,  gossips  say — 

(Hey  nonny  !) 

The  jolly  youth  would  give,  he  said, 
A  hundred  florins  her  to  wed 
If  she  would  first  his  leman  be. 
(Hey  nonny  !) 
"Prithee,  take  them,  dear,"  says  he, 
"  With  all  my  heart  I  give  them  thee." 
(Hey  nonny !) 

The  hussy  home  did  straight  repair : 
Her  mother  counselled  her  :  "  Beware  ! 
Lest  it  repent  thee  by  and  by ; 

(Hey  nonny  !) 
For  though  he  speak  thee  fair  and  sigh, 
His  precious  gold  is  all  my  eye  ! 

(Hey  nonny  !) 

"  The  young  men  of  the  present  day, 
Promise  more  largely  than  they  pay, 
And  though  their  purse  well  filled  appear, 

(Hey  nonny!) 
The  girl  who  trusts  to  it,  I  fear, 
Will  find  her  folly  cost  her  dear." 

(Hey  nonny  !) 


THE  HUSBAND  121 

servant,  Robert  Suriete,  to  compensate  him  for  the  portionless 
condition  of  a  pretty  girl,  Marie  de  Briethe. 

The  other  kind  of  husband,  which  was  destined  more  and 
more  to  outnumber  the  first,  saw  in  money,  on  the  contrary, 
the  real,  substantial  element  of  wedlock.  Anyone  who 
thought  that  a  woman  would  appreciate  a  sacrifice  made  to 
marry  her  struck  them  as  egregiously  simple.  The  richer 
women  are,  the  better  they  are,  as  Montaigne  says :  there  is 
no  reason  why  a  man  should  sacrifice  positive  "  commodities" 
to  uncertain  (and  not  particularly  useful)  quantities  such  as 
birth,  beauty,  virtue,  wit. 

The  ball  once  set  rolling  spun  along  merrily.  Especially 
in  Italy,  the  exploitation  of  marriage  attained  imposing 
proportions.  Indignant  fathers  of  families  protested ;  the 
Venetian  senate,  composed  mainly  of  fathers,  passed  various 
decrees  more  and  more  restrictive,  contemptuous  and  scath- 
ing, but  all  in  vain.  The  whole  class  of  idle  young  men  of 
fashion,  and  it  was  a  numerous  one,  avowedly  regarded 
marriage  as  a  unique  means  of  enriching  themselves  and 
assuring  an  idle  life,  a  charmingly  easy  means,  too,  not 
above  the  level  of  the  meanest  intelligence.  Guez  de  Balsac 
likened  it  to  a  fat  prebend  which  does  not  require  the  holder 
to  become  actually  a  canon,  but  which  does  unhappily 
necessitate  occasional  residence. 

This  custom  does  not  perhaps  indicate  very  warm  feelings 
on  the  part  of  the  young  men,  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
it  satisfied  the  secret  wishes  of  the  women  and  gave  a 
sanction  to  the  evolution  of  their  ideas. 

From  the  day  when  they  pay  the  household  expenses, 
women  consider  the  parts  reversed,  and  begin  by  assuming 

Alack  !  the  hussy  tossed  her  head, 
Heedless  of  what  her  mother  said, 
For  'twas  to  her  a  greater  joy 

(Hey  nonny  !) 
To  get  the  money  from  her  boy — 
Those  hundred  florins  of  Savoy. 

(Hey  nonny  !) 

A  hundred  !  how  they  gleamed  and  shone  ! 
Had  she  sat  spinning  on  and  on 
Full  twenty  year,  till  worn  and  old, 

(Hey  nonny  !) 
Not  all  the  thread  she'd  spun  and  sold 
Had  brought  her  half  that  shining  gold. 

(Hey  nonny  !)] 


122       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  most  perfect  liberty.  Henceforth  no  more  constraint, 
no  more  subterfuges,  no  more  Judas  kisses.  They  are  now, 
mark  you,  equal1  or  superior  to  their  husband  in  those 
material  concerns  which  are  the  essence  of  domesticity; 
and  as  moreover  they  fancy  that  morally  they  excel  the 
men,  that  they  are  at  once  more  affectionate,  more  chaste 
and  more  steadfast ;  as  they  are  reminded  on  all  sides  of  the 
example  of  paragons  like  Cleopatra,  they  make  up  their 
minds  to  be  Cleopatras  too.  They  consent,  out  of  goodness 
of  soul,  to  try  their  prentice  hand  on  their  husbands.  They 
make  him  happy,  sometimes  even  in  his  own  despite ;  they 
are  going  to  transform  him  "  from  a  battered  ingot  or  a  base 
coin  into  a  new  crown  piece."  In  his  heart  of  hearts  the 
husband  may  fret  and  fume,  call  to  mind  the  old-time  ways, 
wonder  at  his  wife's  continual  absences  from  home  and  her 
choice  of  friends,  and  at  times  even  try  to  interfere ;  but  he 
is  quickly  given  to  understand  that  my  lady  is  not  going  to 
be  held  in  a  leash  or  shut  up  in  a  band-box,  that  seraglios 
exist  no  longer.  She  will  devote  herself  to  his  happiness, 
provided  he  shows  himself  docile  and  recognises  his  in- 
capacity and  helplessness.  Ay,  and  let  him  reflect:  how 
could  he  get  on  without  so  virtuous  a  wife?  He  would 
go  into  a  consumption.  She  is  there,  regulating  his  expenses, 
his  pleasures,  the  frets  and  sallies  of  his  temperament ;  she 
watches  like  a  sister  of  mercy  over  his  physical  and  moral 
well-being,  and  it  is  by  this  means  that  the  household 
represents  henceforth  a  unity,  sound,  robust,  with  two  bodies, 
four  arms,  and  two  souls. 

Obviously  (to  repeat  it  once  more),  we  have  no  intention 
of  enunciating  an  absolute  rule.  In  speaking  of  households, 
we  do  not  mean  that  all  the  households  in  France  were  cast 
in  the  same  mould,  and  that  everywhere  at  the  same  moment 
they  were  all  acting  precisely  in  the  same  way.  No  two 
were  alike. 

The  truth  is  that,  one  way  or  another,  a  very  large 
number  of  women  no  longer  suffered  themselves  to  be 
snuffed  out, "  trodden  under  foot,"  to  use  the  current  phrase. 
As  to  the  manner  in  which  their  controlling  influence 
showed  itself,  that  depended  on  events,  tastes,  how  the  wind 

1One  of  the  friends  of  Margaret  of  France,  the  worthy  La  Perriere, 
thunders  against  marriages  for  money  or  beauty,  which  only  end  in  putting 
"a  fox  into  a  hermitage." 


THE   HUSBAND  12S 

blew,  circumstances.  A  favourite  idea  of  Margaret  of 
France,  and  one  which  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  get 
out  of  her  head,  was  that  women  always  err  by  their  meek 
and  quiet  spirit,  their  excess  of  long-suffering.  In  vain  is 
the  reply  made  that  more  than  one  woman  makes  a  virtue 
of  necessity,  and  that,  face  to  face  with  a  violent  creature 
threatening  to  break  every  bone  in  her  body,  a  woman 
needs  all  her  patience ;  Margaret  protests  that  she  would 
rather  be  flogged  than  despised.  This  magnificent  declar- 
ation sets  some  of  the  company  smiling,  and  enraptures  the 
women.  One  pert  widow  alleges  that  she  loved  her  husband 
so  much  that  if  he  had  beaten  her  she  would  have  killed 
him.  "  In  other  words,"  retorts  Henri  d'Albret,  "  you  mean 
to  rule  the  roost.  Well,  I  am  agreeable,  but  you  would  have 
to  get  all  the  husbands  to  agree."  Margaret  winces  under 
this  intellectual  cut ;  she  is  put  out,  for  natural  as  she  would 
regard  it  for  her  husband  to  take  her  orders,  she  dares  not 
say  so.  Even  she  falters,  and  admits  that  the  man  is  the 
natural  head,  but  not  that  he  has  a  right  to  desert  or 
maltreat  his  wife.1  Can  this  be  Margaret  ?  Yes,  the  words 
are  her  own,  and  are  exactly  to  the  point.  Women  do  lack 
decision — and  she  was  the  very  first  to  show  it ! 

Some  young  ladies,  to  elude  this  difficulty,  thought  it  well 
to  marry  a  ninny — if  not  an  absolute  fool.  Worthy  folk 
were  amazed  and  sang  the  praises  of  mind  and  its  attrac- 
tions, "  the  treasures  of  knowledge,"  and  asked  them  what 
pleasure  they  promised  themselves.  What  a  question  to 
ask  !  Why,  since  a  husband  was  in  question,  they  promised 
themselves  precisely  no  pleasure ;  nothing  but  money,  or  a 
name!  That  was  how  the  Duchess  of  Medina-Sidonia 
married ;  she  espoused  an  income  of  sixty-thousand  ducats, 
with  a  grandee  of  Spain.  True,  this  grandee,  when  paying  a 
visit  to  the  archbishop,  asked  very  politely  to  see  the 
children !  There  was  nothing  here  to  hinder  the  duchess 
from  having  as  much  mind  as  she  wanted.  But  it  must  be 
confessed  that  this  was  an  extreme  remedy,  and  it  would 
be  preferable  for  a  woman  to  feel  and  believe  herself  able 
to  mate  with  a  man  of  intelligence. 

Domestic  manners  thus  underwent  a  profound  transfor- 
mation. In  humble  homes  the  wife  continued  perforce  to 
cook,  to  make  the  beds,  to  wash  her  husband's  head  and 
1  Heptameron,  Tale  37« 


124       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

feet,  with  no  loss  of  dignity.  But  in  the  great  houses,  it 
was  no  longer  common  to  find  hard  inelegant  matrons  who 
rose  with  the  sun,  were  continually  chevying  the  children 
and  servants,  and  knew  no  pleasure  but  the  joy  of  piling  up 
well-bleached  and  well-darned  linen  on  Saturday,  the  house- 
wife's field-day.  As  Fourier  has  pointedly  observed,  disdain 
of  such  mole-eyed  habits  is  the  test  of  a  people's  progress  in 
civilisation. 

It  is  much  more  delightful  to  float  through  life  with 
a  smile  on  the  lips,  and  to  govern  imperceptibly,  by  means 
of  a  languorous  Creole  grace. 

Such  grace  abounded,  and  many  instances  of  it  might  be 
given.  Here  is  a  specimen  which  seems  to  us  characteristic; 
it  is  a  simple  little  note  from  Isabella  d'Este 1  to  her  hus- 
band, dictated  to  a  secretary : 

"My  Lord, 

Prithee  mock  not  at  my  letter,  nor  say  that  all  women 
are  poor  things  and  ever  smitten  with  fear,  for  the  malignity  of  others  far 
exceedeth  my  fear  and  your  lordship's  mettle.  I  should  have  written 
this  letter  with  my  own  hand,  but  'tis  so  hot  that,  if  it  last,  we  are 
like  to  die.  The  little  knave  is  very  well  and  sendeth  a  kiss  to  your 
lordship,  and  as  for  me,  I  do  ever  commend  myself  to  you. 
Longing  to  see  your  lordship, 

Isabella,  with  my  own  hand." 
Mantua,  July  23rd. 

"  With  my  own  hand,"  the  signature  and  no  more.  It  is 
so  hot !  But  does  not  this  very  air  of  fragility  convey  a 
charm  exactly  of  the  kind  to  subjugate  even  a  husband  ? 

This  charm  does  enfold  him — and  it  keeps  husband  and 
wife  apart !  Seen  at  a  distance  these  distinguished  women, 
genuinely  Stoic  at  heart  under  a  mask  of  abandon,  in  reality 
overawed  their  lords  and  masters,  and,  even  in  their  private 
intercourse  with  them,  kept  themselves  shrouded  in  mystery 
and  the  unknown.  Vittoria  Colonna's  husband,  who  took 
little  pains  to  be  agreeable  at  home,2  became  so  devoted  a 
lover  of  his  lawful  spouse  when  far  away  as  to  compose 
in  her  honour  a  whole  volume  of  charming  verses  entitled 
A  Book  of  Loves.  This  book  was  never  published,  and  has 
disappeared.     Brantome  keenly  regrets  its  disappearance, 

1  [See  Book  in.  chapter  iii.] 

2  Vittoria  Colonna's  bed,  preserved  in  the  Pescara  palace  at  Naples,  is 
extraordinarily  wide. 


THE  HUSBAND  125 

because,  he  says,  it  would  have  given  us  an  opportunity  to 
see  the  poetry  of  conjugal  love,  and  to  know  if  that  ought 
to  draw  its  inspiration  from  platonic  sentiments  or  not — 
from  celestial  love  or  from  love  legitimately  terrestrial. 

Poor  Brantome  !  We  think  we  can  solve  the  question 
which  troubles  him.  The  women  of  that  time  were  waxing 
philosophic,  they  had  set  their  minds  towards  acquiring  a 
good  deal  of  knowledge  and  yet  remaining  alive,  instead  of 
minimising  themselves,  humbling  themselves,  following  be- 
hind like  a  boat  in  tow.  They  had  become  vestals  (if  we 
may  put  it  thus)  in  regard  to  marriage,  and  considered  that 
their  true  mission  was  to  shed  abroad  the  love  which 
welled  over  from  their  quivering  hearts ;  for  it  is  always 
the  lack  of  men  that  turns  women  into  feminists.  In  the 
world  they  were  going  to  become  "  goddesses,"  and  it  would 
be  impossible  any  longer  to  live  without  them. 

Francis  I.,  in  a  court  without  women,  found  himself 
getting  too  proud  and  despotic ;  his  gardens  appeared  to 
him  "flowerless,"  so  he  summoned  and  enticed  young  women 
to  him,  and  treated  them  "  like  goddesses  in  heaven."  He 
shewed  them  their  new  mission. 

And  yet,  what  unsuspected  depths  of  loathing  rose  to  the 
lips  of  those  divine  women !  I  do  not  know  whether  the 
number  of  women  sick  of  their  husbands  was  larger  than  at 
present,  but  it  was  large  enough.  Pride  and  a  high  senti- 
ment of  duty  in  the  gaze  of  the  world  long  watched  over 
them,  like  those  grand  statues  of  splendid,  almost  menacing 
virtues  which  the  sculptors  of  former  days  were  fond 
of  setting  before  a  tomb,  at  either  end  of  the  grave.  But 
after  they  had  accomplished,  unostentatiously,  devotedly, 
the  mission  for  which  men  married  them,  namely,  kept  the 
house  in  order,  loyally  studied  the  master's  comfort,  poulticed 
and  physicked  him,  borne  him  children,  replenished  the 
stock  (pardon  the  expression)  like  good  brood-mares,  and 
humbly  occupied  the  foot  of  the  table,  there  came  a  time 
when  this  primary  duty  was  done,  and  then  they  sprang  up 
as  though  from  a  sleep,  and  looking  at  the  sun,  enquired  of 
him  whither  they  must  fly  to  find  life.  They  were  born  to 
sow  flowers  behind  them.  Their  children  were  these  flowers, 
painfully  plucked  out  of  their  very  vitals  and  flung  into  the 
future.  It  remained  yet  to  pluck  from  their  hearts,  with  a 
more   vivifying  joy,  immaterial   flowers,  flowers   of  love, 


126       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

flowers  of  happiness,  children  of  the  soul,  their  real  children, 
for  if  the  woman  is  a  passive  being  in  physical  conception, 
in  spiritual  conception  she  plays  another  part,  she  becomes 
the  active  being.     The  seed  is  hers  to  sow. 

By  this  time  they  were  no  longer  at  the  "  angelic  age," 
as  Alfred  de  Vigny  called  it,  namely,  fifteen  years.  As  a  rule, 
they  might  confess  to  thirty,  the  age  when  women  have  "  a 
spice  of  the  devil,"  the  age  at  which  one  ought  to  know  how 
to  deal  with  soul  and  heart. 

The  sort  of  revolution  they  brought  about  was  no  new 
thing.  There  always  had  been  and  always  will  be  womeD 
of  thirty  years,  quite  aware  of  their  age  ;  but  these  were  in 
addition  keen-sighted,  psychological  women,  who  meant  to 
get  to  the  bottom  of  the  phenomenon  and  measure  its  inten- 
sity with  the  eye  of  a  connoisseur,  for  it  seemed  to  them 
that  they  were  entering  into  life. 

The  children,  who  had  been  the  raison  d'etre  of  the  home, 
were  about  to  go  out  into  the  world,  or  had  already  gone. 
As  soon  as  he  could,  the  first-born  son,  that  dear  little  boy 
whom  the  mother  loved,  asked  and  obtained  a  little  money 
and  disappeared.  Henceforth  he  was  hardly  mentioned  ;  he 
now  had  his  own  affairs,  his  own  pleasures,  and  when  he  wrote 
it  would  be  a  postscript,  affectionate  but  rather  concise  : 
"  Madam,  I  had  forgotten  to  write  and  say  I  have  learnt 
that  you  have  given  me  a  little  brother  named  Guy.  I 
beseech  you,  Madam,  see  him  well  nourished,  for  I  love  him 
well."  Sometimes  news  came  that,  far  away,  Death  had 
rudely  snapped  the  last  remaining  tie,  and  from  the  truly 
heroic  words  which  then  burst  from  certain  courageous 
mothers'  hearts,  we  see  how  hardened  their  souls  had  be- 
come, and  how  the  noblest  and  most  dearly  loved  of  them 
had  been  compelled,  in  their  thorny  life,  to  form  the  painful 
but  admirable  habit  of  sacrificing  their  affections  to  the 
very  uttermost.  Gabrielle  de  Bourbon  was  announcing  to 
her  officers  the  death  of  her  only  son,  killed  at  Marignan. 
Aloud  she  said  :  "in  this  battle  that  the  King  has  won"; 
but  in  a  whisper  she  added  :  "  which  has  brought  such 
heavy  woe  upon  us."  • 

That  sweet  women  whose  very  nature  is  to  love  should 
go  out,  when  all  fails  them  thus,  into  the  world,  like  the 
bees  of  God,  to  gather  a  little  honey  and  labour  for  the 
common  hive,  is  not  very  surprising.     They  prefer  "  a  little 


THE  HUSBAND  127 

love  from  many  to  a  great  deal  from  one,"1 — especially 
when  that  one  does  not  love  them  ! 

And  so  marriage  comes  to  serve  them  as  a  refuge  when  on 
their  honey-quest.  It  is  like  the  lodge  in  which  hunters 
take  up  their  quarters,  to  be  nearer  their  game  and  to  shelter 
themselves  from  the  weather.  The  women  rejoice  at  having 
it.  Nevertheless,  before  studying  these  emancipated  women 
as  they  play  their  part  manlike  away  from  home,  we  have 
still  to  examine  a  final  objection  of  principle,  which  was 
strong  enough  to  hold  some  of  them  back. 

Many  moralists,  even  without  bias  against  feminism,  re- 
proach the  women  with  owing  their  philanthropy  to  a 
horror  of  marriage ;  according  to  them,  the  mission  to  the 
world  upon  which  the  women  wished  to  enter  was  for  them 
a  means  of  evading  their  domestic  duties. 

That  is  not  the  fact.  Without  appealing  to  the  obvious 
arguments,  we  wish  for  no  other  proof  of  the  women's  good 
intentions  than  their  very  manifest  desire  not  to  carry  their 
separation  from  their  husbands  beyond  a  certain  point. 
They  did  mean  to  render  their  bonds  lighter,  and  even 
elastic.  But,  as  we  have  already  seen,  they  defended  the 
institution  of  marriage  and  affectionately  tended  their 
husbands  in  sickness;  and  it  is  certain  that  they  had  no 
wish  to  lose  them. 

Divorce  originated  in  the  masculine  countries.      It  ap- 

E eared  a  step  in  advance,  because  hitherto  public  opinion 
ad  shown  itself  singularly  cruel  in  regard  to  separated 
wives.  There  was  neither  pity  nor  justice  for  them.  The 
husband  had  no  shame  in  deserting  his  wife,  and  it  was 
always  she  who  was  blamed. 

To  put  a  stop  to  separations,  the  Senate  of  Venice,  evidently 
convinced  that  as  men  they  were  not  there  for  nothing, 
prescribed  in  1543  a  system  which  was  simplicity  itself. 
All  separated  women  were  metaphorically  to  be  buried  in  a 

1 A  lady  of  Florence,  Alessandra  Bardi,  on  learning  of  the  sudden  death 
of  one  of  her  sons,  wrote  to  another  the  following  beautiful  letter,  so 
touching  in  its  resignation:  "My  sweet  son,  I  have  learnt  how,  on  the 
23rd  of  last  month,  it  pleased  Him  who  gave  me  Matteo  to  recall  him 
to  Himself,  in  complete  consciousness,  in  full  possession  of  grace,  with  all 
the  sacraments  necessary  to  a  good  and  faithful  Christian.  I  have  felt  the 
bitterest  grief  at  being  deprived  of  such  a  son,  and  methinks  his  death  has 
ilone  me  great  affliction  apart  from  filial  love,  and  likewise  to  you  two,  my 
sons,  now  reduced  to  so  small  a  band.  I  praise  and  bless  the  Lord  for 
all  that  is  His  will  "  (Miintz,  History  of  the  Renaissance,  i.  18). 


128       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

heap ;  they  were  forced  to  wear  a  special  costume  like  lepers, 
and  were  forbidden  access  to  any  public  place.  The  clergy 
revolted.  In  the  end,  the  august  Senate  contented  itself 
with  a  milder  punishment ;  it  placed  the  unfortunate  women 
under  the  surveillance,  not  of  the  state  police,  but  of  their 
ex-husbands. 

But  a  time  came  when  the  Venetian  measures  no  longer 
appeared  feasible,  and  then  in  the  countries  where  men 
ruled  opinion  it  was  generally  admitted  that  woman,  being 
a  secondary  creature,  needed  an  owner  and  employer. 
Instead  of  trampling  upon  her  when  she  found  herself 
without  a  master,  they  deigned  to  do  her  so  much  justice 
as  to  provide  her  with  a  new  lord.  Calvin,  generous  soul, 
permitted  her,  in  case  of  proved  desertion,  to  take  another 
mate. 

In  the  Roman  countries,  deserted  wives  were  objects 
of  compassion.  But  marriage  remained  indissoluble ;  there 
was  no  remarriage;  and  a  woman  in  a  country  where 
women  were  a  force  had  nothing  to  gain  by  placing  herself 
in  a  false  position.  All  that  Roman  charity  could  do  was 
to  throw  open  houses  of  refuge  where  she  might  find  a 
retreat  in  honour  and  solitude.  The  true  way  of  getting 
rid  of  a  husband  was  to  keep  him. 

Nor  did  the  women,  even  the  more  philosophic  of  them, 
find  any  substantial  advantage  in  being  widows. 

Certainly  we  must  make  some  deductions  from  the  rather 
theatrical  demonstrations  customary  at  death-beds.  The 
custom  was  an  old  one,  dating  from  the  time  when  it 
was  agreed  that  in  losing  her  master  a  woman  lost  her 
all ;  these  poor  women  were  stricken  to  the  heart-core,  and 
thrilled  with  an  emotion  half  comic,  half  touching.  That 
was  their  manner  of  receiving  their  liberty;  it  seemed  as 
though  they  had  nothing  left  them  but  to  die  themselves, 
especially  if  they  were  young,  and  for  some  time  everyone 
seemed  of  that  opinion.  In  lugubrious  and  lachrymose  tones 
their  friends  would  remind  them  of  overpoweringly  wonder- 
ful examples  :  Artemisia,  who  drank  her  husband's  ashes  in 
a  cup  of  water ;  Portia,  Cato's  daughter  and  wife  of  Brutus, 
who,  on  learning  of  her  husband's  death,  finding  no  knife 
at  hand,  did  not  seek  one  but  swallowed  live  coals.  Those 
who  had  simply  opened  a  vein  or  cut  their  throat,  or  who  had 
without  ado  plunged   a  dagger  in  their  heart,  were  past 


THE   HUSBAND  129 

numbering.  We  can  realise  what  delicacy,  what  aristocratic 
charm  there  was  in  the  Indian  widow's  suttee. 

But  for  her  children,  who  after  reconciling  her  to  marriage 
reconciled  her  to  life,  Louise  of  Savoy  would  have  died 
on  the  corpse  of  her  husband ;  so,  at  least,  Jean  de  Saint- 
Gelais,  her  chamberlain,  assures  us,  and  he  was  suspected, 
only  too  reasonably,  of  over-familiarity  with  the  secret 
tastes  of  his  mistress.  But  for  her  religious  scruples  the 
beautiful  Isabella  Richisentia  had  killed  herself  on  the  body 
of  Raymond  de  Cardona.1  Bouchet  and  Moncetto,  nicknamed 
Lycurgus,  deliberated  in  great  distress  of  mind  whether 
they  should  persuade  Mary  of  England 2  to  live,  after  the 
death  of  Louis  XII. ;  they  reminded  her  of  Lucrece,  Penelope 
and  others,  and  Moncetto  wore  himself  out  in  speaking 
of  them  to  her  in  every  known  language  and  in  verse. 
But  for  the  young  Englishman  she  espoused  only  a  fortnight 
later,  Mary,  perhaps,  would  have  died. 

As  a  rule  these  widows,  like  reasonable  creatures,  at  last 
made  up  their  minds  to  live,  under  pressure  from  those 
about  them ;  but  it  was  also  customary  for  them  to  display 
at  least  gorgeous  mourning  finery.3 

Let  us  first  see  how  they  buried  their  husbands. 

There  were  quiet  women  like  Anne  of  France  who  con- 
tented themselves  with  the  celebration  of  a  very  impressive 
service,  and  to  all  appearance  shed  no  tears,  for  they  spoke 
neither  of  drinking  the  powdered  bones  of  the  dead  man  nor 

!The  story  is  given  in  Nifo's  De  Amore,  cap.  cii. 

2 [Sister  of  Henry  VIII.  She  was  Louis'  third  wife:  he  was  in  his 
decrepitude,  and  died  three  months  after  the  marriage.  She  at  once 
married  the  handsome  Charles  Brandon,  Duke  of  Suffolk,  who  had  escorted 
her  to  France.] 

3  The  diplomatic  agent  of  Mantua  thus  reports  his  visit  of  condolence  to 
the  Duchess  of  Urbino  :  "  I  found  her  in  her  room  among  her  ladies,  all  in 
black,  the  shutters  closed,  the  apartment  lighted  by  a  single  torch  placed 
on  the  floor.  She  was  seated  on  a  cushion,  a  black  veil  on  her  head,  and 
wore  a  high-necked  dress,  or  at  any  rate  her  bosom  was  covered  with  a  veiJ 
as  high  as  her  chin.  .  .  .  She  held  out  her  hand  and  burst  into  tears  ; 
a  moment  passed  before  her  sobs  and  mine  permitted  us  to  speak.  I 
handed  her  your  lordship's  letter,  and  dispatched  my  visit,  my  condolences, 
and  my  attempts  at  solace  in  a  few  words,  so  as  not  to  prolong  her  grief.  I 
imparted  to  her  also  the  recommendations  and  offers  with  which  I  was 
charged  by  my  most  illustrious  lord.  Both  were  well  received."  Then 
they  talked  of  Mantua  and  the  Gonzaga  family :  the  Duchess  kept  the 
ambassador  for  more  than  two  hours.  Next  day,  there  was  another  visit 
of  three  hours  ;  this  time,  her  spirit  got  the  upper  hand,  an  interesting 
discussion  ensued,  and  the  ambassador  succeeded  in  making  her  laugh. 

I 


130      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

of  spending  the  rest  of  their  life  in  the  bed  of  the  dear 
departed.  Anne  of  France  indeed  considered  these  pro- 
ceedings as  "  useless,  unworthy  and  detestable  follies  " ;  the 
only  mourning  that  appealed  to  her  was  simple,  silent  and 
lasting.  But  more  than  once  people  were  staggered  at  the 
quantity  of  tears  women's  eyes  could  contain.  "  Vainly  do 
they  tear  their  cheeks  and  dishevel  their  hair ;  I  go  off  and 
enquire  of  a  chambermaid  or  of  a  secretary  how  they  were, 
how  they  lived  together.  We  would  much  rather  they 
laughed  at  our  death,  if  they  would  but  smile  on  us  while 
we  live."1 

A  Spanish  lady,  the  Countess  of  Consentana,  in  officially 
notifying  her  vassals  of  the  death  of  her  husband,  signed 
herself,  "  The  sad  and  unfortunate  countess,"  and,  the  better 
to  indicate  her  distress,  she  dropped  two  ink-blots  where 
her  name  should  have  come.  The  facetious  vassals  replied 
to  their  "  sad  and  more  than  very  unfortunate  countess  "  in 
an  address  which,  in  their  agitation,  they  all  signed  with 
enormous  daubs  and  flourishes.  Spain  smiled,  from  Bilbao 
to  Gibraltar. 

So  a  widow  left  nothing  undone  to  show  how  much  she 
deplored  her  solitary  condition.  To  this  first  conclusion  we 
must  add  a  second  not  less  manifest :  almost  every  widow 
strove  earnestly  to  regard  her  husband  as  alive,  so  true  is  it 
that  her  aim  was  to  act  under  the  shadow  of  a  husband  as 
little  in  her  way  as  she  in  his. 

Of  all  the  species  of  husbands,  the  dead  husband  is  the 
one  who  would  require  the  most  special  monograph. 
However  little  heroic  his  life  may  have  been,  his  widow 
made  it  her  business  to  sing  his  praises  in  public.  A  woman 
whose  married  life  had  notoriously  been  one  of  discreet 
indifference,  if  not  of  discord,  would  spend  her  nights  and 
days  in  celebrating  the  glory  and  the  memory  of  the  dead 
man.  So  profoundly  would  she  identify  herself  with  him 
in  heart  that  ere  long  she  would  develop  into  the  widow  of 
a  great  man  and  rise  into  a  superior  atmosphere.  The 
greatnesses  which  the  deceased  perhaps  never  possessed  she 
first  gave  him  and  then  appropriated  herself,  and  in  the*  fire 
of  this  love  she  was  gradually  consumed.     Besides.,  some- 

1  Montaigne,  bk.  ii.  cap.  xxxv.  He  himself  desires  no  tears,  no  funeral 
oration  :  "I  renounce  henceforth  the  favourable  testimonies  men  may  will 
to  give  me,  not  because  I  am  worthy  of  them,  but  because  I  am  dead." 


THE   HUSBAND  131 

times  she  happened  actually  to  have  got  past  the  age  for 
love. 

Margaret  of  France  consoled  herself  frankly  enough  for 
the  loss  of  the  Duke  of  Alencon ;  but  Vittoria  Colonna  never 
ceased  to  address  sonnets  to  her  captain,  and  when  she  was 
urged  to  marry  again,  her  reply  was  simple  :  "  My  husband 
Ferdinand,  who  to  you  seems  dead,  is  not  dead  to  me." 
Diana  of  Poitiers  manipulated  this  principle  of  "  beyond  the 
grave  "  with  wonderful  dexterity  :  she  never  was  a  widow. 
Her  husband  was  dead,  to  be  sure,  but  she  displayed  as  her 
device  an  evergreen  tree-stem  springing  from  a  tomb,  with 
the  words :  "  Left  alone,  she  lives  in  him."  As  late  as  1558, 
at  the  moment  of  her  greatest  worldly  triumphs,  she 
remained  faithful  to  him. 

Here,  then,  we  have  reached  a  second  and  a  very  impor- 
tant point :  a  woman  of  the  world,  so  to  speak,  had  her 
husband's  soul  packed  in  straw  (like  her  china),  and  in 
principle  she  always  considered  herself  as  a  wife. 

In  regard  to  the  employment  of  their  widowhood  the 
widows  fall  into  two  classes.  First  there  was  the  widow  of 
the  classical  traditional  school,  who  no  longer  belonged  to 
the  world,  but  buried  herself  in  her  maternal  duties  or  in 
charitable  work.  She  was  only  a  survival  of  the  old-style 
housewife,  of  whom  a  good  many  were  produced  even  in 
the  sixteenth  century.  For  example  there  was  Anne  of 
Polignac,  who,  in  her  retreat  at  Verteuil,  where  she  divided 
her  time  between  her  children  and  a  splendid  library, 
amazed  the  Emperor  Charles  V.  with  her  well-regulated 
and  dignified  life.  Again,  there  was  Charlotte  d'Albret,  the 
widow  of  Caesar  Borgia ;  she  was  a  little  more  worldly,  and 
by  nature  fond  of  show,  splendid  plate,  magnificent  jewels, 
and  a  large  retinue. 

These  widows  were  administrators  of  the  first  order ;  so 
far  as  the  interests  of  the  family  were  concerned,  it  was  an 
advantage,  as  a  proverb  ran,  "  for  the  husband  to  go  first  to 
earth."  They  excelled  in  getting  full  value  for  their  money; 
sometimes  even  they  were  not  averse  to  dabbling  in  usury 
Charlotte  d'Albret  rather  liked  it.  It  would  certainly  not 
have  been  safe  to  reckon  on  their  alleged  feebleness ;  some 
of  them  were  of  mettle  enough  to  mount  the  ramparts  like 
Catherine  Sforza.  After  the  death  of  Grisegonelle  Frottier, 
various  relatives  of  his  conspired  to  capture  by  force  of  arms 


132      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

the  manor  of  Blanc  which  belonged  to  him.  His  widow, 
Francoise  d'Amboise,  learning  of  their  plot,  immediately 
appealed  to  the  "  picaulx,"  a  brotherhood  of  Poitevin  knights 
who  were  vowed  to  protect  widows  and  orphans;  and 
instead  of  leaving  her  cause  to  the  halting  march  of  justice, 
she  organised  an  expedition  and  overthrew  her  adversaries. 
In  spite  of  the  rather  energetic  character  of  the  proceeding, 
Louis  XL  was  touched,  and  willingly  gave  his  pardon. 

The  most  of  these  good  widows  spent  a  part  of  their  life 
in  convent  chapels,  and  it  was  in  this  direction  that  a 
breach  was  made  in  their  spirit  of  economy,  for,  according 
to  pious  authors,  the  devil  worms  his  way  through  the 
vestry  door.  They  would  meet  there  a  lay  brother,  charged 
with  the  duty  of  nurturing  simple  souls  into  fruitfulness. 
Beginning  by  sending  some  delicious  tarts  in  exchange  for 
a  De  Profundis,  the  ladies  would  by  degrees  make  up  their 
minds  to  found  a  chapel,  then  to  have  it  decorated,  then  to 
endow  it. 

Or  they  received  charming  letters  from  the  good  nuns : 
"We  are  poor  women  whom  your  departure  has  left  in 
distress,  and  we  may  say  that  we  have  lost  all  the  good  of 
life.  .  .  .  We  are  still  wearing  the  cloaks  you  made  for 
us,  and  we  are  going  without  pelisses,  as  our  custom  is.  The 
convent  has  not  changed  since  you  left  us  .  .  .  except  it  be 
that  we  suffer  cruelly  from  cold  during  the  winter."1 

Many  grave  and  strong-minded  widows,  after  having 
mingled  in  affairs,  took  advantage  of  their  widowhood  only 
to  forget  a  world  in  which  their  heart  had  not  found  sus- 
tenance. So  soon  as  they  had  fulfilled  unavoidable  duties, 
it  was  a  pleasure  to  them  to  distribute  their  property  and 
retire  from  the  world.  We  can  hardly  realise  how  the  vision 
of  a  few  sweet,  peaceful  years  consecrated  to  the  soul  haunted 
the  hearts  of  women  whom  the  evil  star  of  too  high  birth 
had  flung  into  political  affairs. 

Such  was  the  end  Margaret  of  Austria2  would  have  desired. 

1  June  8,  1508.  Sisters  Domicella  and  Elena,  from  Forli,  to  Catherine 
Sforza. 

2  [Daughter  of  Maximilian  of  Austria,  and  regent  of  the  Netherlands. 
She  was  affianced  as  a  child  to  the  Dauphin  of  France  (Charles  VIII.),  then 
married  to  the  Infant  of  Spain,  who  died  in  a  few  months  :  finally  at  the 
age  of  twenty-one  married  Philibert  of  Savoy,  who  died  after  four  happy 
years  of  wedlock.  She  was  a  great  patroness  of  agriculture  and  the  arts, 
and  a  poetess.] 


THE  HUSBAND  133 

Such  was  actually  the  end  of  two  exquisite  princesses  of 
the  house  of  Lorraine:  Margaret  of  Lorraine,  duchess  of 
Alencon,  who  first  connected  herself  with  a  hospital,  then 
with  the  strict  order  of  the  Poor  Clares ;  and  Philippa  of 
Gueldres,  who  entered  the  same  sisterhood  when  her  son 
ascended  the  throne.  She  lived  with  them  for  twenty- 
seven  years  in  the  deepest  humility,  styling  herself  "a 
worm  of  the  soil,"  though  her  companions  might  continue 
to  call  her  "  our  reverend  Mother  the  Queen." 

The  new  generation  was  to  see  little  of  these  sublime 
modesties.  The  majority  of  widows  lived  in  the  world  ;  but 
what  liberty  they  enjoyed  they  bought  very  dear,  and  on  the 
whole  they  had  less  liberty  than  wives.  They  were  gay 
and  did  not  darken  too  often  the  vestry-door;  they  did 
not  flaunt  the  time-honoured  widow's  cap,  still  dear 
to  Englishwomen — headgear  that  would  disgust  anybody 
with  widowhood.  Was  that  a  crime  ?  By  no  means  ;  and 
yet  the  slightest  slip  or  suspicion  of  a  slip  was  in  them 
unpardonable.  Men  saw  in  every  widow  either  a  naughty 
woman  or  a  hypocrite,  and  they  did  not  shrink  from  saying 
so.  A  physician  was  once  bargaining  for  a  mule  in  the 
presence  of  a  fair  widow,  and  said  he :  "I  want  one  that's 
a  widow " :  and  as  the  dealer  did  not  understand  him,  he 
added :  "  Yes,  a  widow,  that  is,  plump,  and  light  on  her 
heels,  and  a  good  feeder."  The  saying  ran:  "If  a  man 
thinks  his  wife  a  little  too  thin,  he  had  better  make  her 
a  widow."  A  widow  was  regarded  only  as  so  much  raw 
material ;  and  from  the  moment  when  "  Goodman  Danger  " 
was  no  longer  at  hand,  sin  itself  seemed  to  lose  its  sweetness. 
Widows  were  recommended  to  frequent  none  but  deserted 
chapels,  to  contemplate  the  crucifix  during  the  night.  This 
condescending  pity  sprang  sometimes  from  good-heartedness ; 
but  it  was  often  odious  to  them,  and  all  the  more  so  because 
everyone,  even  the  most  confidential  servants,  fancied  they 
had  a  right  to  throw  in  their  sympathetic  suggestions.  Anne 
of  France  was  indignant  at  this  universal  treason,  which 
shocked  her  sense  of  right.1 

And  yet  society  added  one  more  tyranny.     For  a  widow 

1  She  herself,  however,  employed  on  occasion  the  most  convincing  argu- 
ments. She  had  confiscated  the  jewels  of  her  cousin,  the  Countess  of 
Montpensier,  who  was  regarded  as  rather  too  hot-headed  for  a  widow,  and 
she  refused  to  restore  them  to  her. 


134      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

to  marry  again  was  scarcely  tolerated.1  She  would  have 
been  just  as  severely  chided  for  finding  a  second  husband  as 
she  would  have  been  for  not  finding  a  first.2  She  would  be 
sooner  forgiven  for  a  frailty,  a  yielding  to  temptation,  than 
for  contracting  a  new  tie.  What  woman  was  this  who  had 
not  had  too  much  of  one  husband,  and  was  not  amply 
satisfied  ?  Among  the  people  she  was  favoured  with  a 
sort  of  skimmington  ride.  Margaret  of  France  defied  the 
prejudice  and  married  again :  it  was  in  sooth  the  deed  of  a 
philosophic  woman.  But  in  general,  widows  were  still 
chained  to  their  widowhood  by  various  considerations ;  in 
the  first  place,  the  practical  difficulty  of  finding  another 
husband.  Men  were  quite  ready  to  court  a  widow,  but 
very  few  would  make  the  sacrifice  involved  in  marrying 
her.  A  woman  no  longer  young,  a  "  shelled  peascod,"  who 
no  longer  had  anything  to  give  and  had  settled  habits  of  her 
own,  was  the  antipodes  of  the  little  maiden  of  twelve  so 
much  in  request.  Besides,  the  widow  herself  was  enjoying 
a  large  and  tranquil  life,  thanks  to  the  jointure  of  which  a 
second  marriage  would  deprive  her;  sometimes  the  whole 
of  her  husband's  fortune  had  come  to  her  on  condition 
that  she  devoted  herself  to  the  children.  She  held  in  all 
matters  the  authority  which  had  belonged  to  the  dead  man, 
and  indeed  it  was  not  uncommon  for  the  husband  expressly 
to  bequeath  her  this  authority  in  his  will.3  The  drawback 
to  this  life  of  business  management  is  precisely  that  a  woman 
loses  in  it  something  of  the  bloom  of  her  grace  and  sweetness, 
she  no  longer  needs  to  employ  persuasiveness  and  love  since 
she  has  force  at  her  disposal,  and  the  result  is  that  she 
becomes  a  sort  of  man,  and  acquires  some  of  the  defects  by 
which  she  has  suffered  at  the  hands  of  her  husband.  We 
can  thus  understand  quite  well  that  a  woman  who  wishes 
to  remain  a  woman  will  do  her  best,  for  her  own  security  aud 

1  The  Fifteen  Joys  of  Marriage  include  among  domestic  calamities  to 
return  from  war  after  a  long  captivity  and  to  find  one's  wife  wearing  the 
finery  of  a  new  lord  and  master. 

*  "  There's  no  man  will  have  you  ! "  is  an  insult  flung  by  a  peasant  at  a 
woman  during  a  squabble. 

"'Be  obedient  to  your  mother,  show  her  honour  and  reverence,  and  take 
care  to  please  her  in  everything  you  can,  as  is  her  due,  as  much  because  it 
is  God '8  commandment  as  that  I  know  she  merits  it,  and  that  you  ought  so 
to  do  if  you  wish  to  succeed,  for  having  known  her,  I  know  that  she  will 
advise  you  so  well  that  you  will  be  therewith  content "  (Instructions  of  a 
Duke  of  Nemours  to  his  sons). 


THE   HUSBAND  135 

charm's  sake,  to  live  under  the  fostering  wing  of  a  precious 
memory,  and  will  cherish  with  the  utmost  devotion  her  (so 
to  speak)  posthumous  husband.    There  lies  her  real  strength. 

The  Renaissance  woman,  then,  a  woman  of  essentially  fine 
grain,  and  well  versed  in  everything  it  was  her  business  to 
know,  was  a  woman  of  absolute  sincerity,  and  we  must 
believe  her  when  she  speaks  well  of  marriage.  She 
considered  that  institution  as  perfectly  reconcilable  with 
the  fulfilment  of  a  mission  in  the  world,  indeed  as 
favourable,  almost  indispensable,  to  it.  She  had  no  more 
reason  to  give  up  marriage  than  to  give  up  eating  and 
drinking :  it  is  not  this  that  enchains  the  soul.  The  idealists 
differed  from  the  utilitarians  solely  in  the  belief  that  one 
marriage  is  enough :  the  former  covered  their  faces  if  a 
widow,  not  ethereal  enough  to  satisfy  them,  went  by  on  the 
arm  of  a  new  husband ;  the  latter  applauded,  and  fancied 
that  by  this  transaction  the  animal  nature  was  held  in 
check.  But  this  is  of  little  interest  to  us.  The  only  result 
important  to  note  is  that  a  woman,  without  ceasing  to  be  a 
woman,  could  win  freedom  for  her  affections  and  her  activities 
as  well  as  a  man.  When  she  had  attained  that  condition  of 
liberty,  she  ascribed  all  the  honour  to  marriage,  and  blessed 
it  instead  of  thinking  that  she  owed  everything  to  herself. 
Marriage,  like  many  human  inventions,  is  a  contrivance 
capable  of  producing  either  liberty  or  tyranny,  and  women 
had  simply  altered  its  direction. 

They  wielded  intimate  and  domestic  powers.  Their  rival 
was  not  the  husband,  they  came  to  terms  with  him ;  it  was 
the  man  who  looked  after  their  body  or  their  soul,  and  to 
whom,  out  of  weakness  or  indolence,  they  were  led  to  attach 
themselves  like  an  anaemic  ivy-plant.  To  mark  their  place 
in  this  world  they  had  themselves  to  learn  how  to  obtain 
what  brings  happiness:  health  of  body  and  of  soul.  Re- 
spected in  regard  to  the  body,  it  remained  for  them  to  gain 
self-respect  in  regard  to  the  soul,  and  to  show  that  true 
Christianity  consists  in  bestowing  power  and  liberty,  not  in 
withdrawing  them. 


BOOK  II.     LIFE  IN  THE  WOELD 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE 

Margaret  of  France  said,  very  incisively :  "  The  defect  of 
women  is  timidity."     They  are  born  to  fear. 

Women  had  become  habituated  to  a  passive  and  secondary 
part.  They  desired  to  escape  from  it,  they  felt  the  need  of 
activity  and  a  freer  air,  their  wings  were  growing  and  they 
adored  intellectual  liberty,  at  any  rate  they  said  so — and 
they  had  in  fact  already  snapped  many  of  their  chains ;  but 
when  you  come  to  close  quarters  and  exchange  confidences 
with  them,  you  perceive  that  they  are  still  held  fast  by  a 
multitude  of  secondary  diffidences,  by  tenuous  invisible 
threads  starting  often  enough  from  social  conventions  of 
little  or  no  importance.  They  are  unable  to  wing  their 
flight,  or  they  require  a  man  to  go  first  and  shew  them  the 
way;  or  an  absolute  necessity,  an  enthusiasm, an  impulse  of 
devotion  is  necessary  to  start  them  off. 

They  move  at  last,  not  through  reasoning,  but  as  the  result 
of  the  more  or  less  vague  sentiment  that  while  their  home- 
life  has  brought  them  no  love,  yet  they  are  made  for  love 
and  have  a  love  mission  to  fulfil./  A  modern  aesthetic 
writer — but  a  man  after  all  and  only  moderately  sensible — 
has  thus  explained  the  appeal  of  grace  as  it  affected  himself: 
"  I  had  nothing  to  love.  For  me  my  parents  were  in  some 
sort  only  the  visible  powers  of  Nature."1  How  much  more 
does  this  apply  to  women  !  They  want  something  to  love  ! 
Separated  from  her  family  the  wife  finds  in  her  husband  the 

1  Ruskin. 
137 


138      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

incarnation,  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word,  of  the  visible 
power  of  Nature,  and  so  it  is  that  the  ardent  instinct  drawing 
her  towards  the  light  is  very  complex,  much  interwoven 
with  pain  and  passion ;  it  is  a  thirst  for  love  almost  cruel  in 
its  intensity.  Just  as  the  husband  wins  honour  for  himself 
by  means  of  external  activity  and  public  service,  so  the  wife 
hears  destiny  making  a  similar  appeal  to  her.  Around  her 
there  is  a  life  to  diffuse,  a  sweetness  to  sow,  hungry  folk  to 
feed,  wounds  to  dress,  a  great  cry  of  distress  and  hardship  to 
soothe ;  and  act  she  must.  A  tradesman's  wife  may  shut 
herself  up  in  the  narrow  egotism  of  her  back  shop.  Could  a 
woman  of  heart  shut  her  eyes  to  the  profound  unrest  of 
society?  Ought  she  to  remain  a  helpless  pawn  on  the 
board,  a  mere  victim  ?  Was  she  not  called  to  take  her 
share,  as  an  intelligent  and  free  creature  ?  Willy  nilly,  she 
must  step  forth  from  her  house — burst  her  shell  and  wing 
away !  At  twenty  it  is  excusable  to  confuse  one's  ideals 
with  life ;  ten  or  fifteen  years  later  this  illusion  has  dis- 
solved. One  feels  then  the  need  of  setting  one's  heart  upon 
some  firm,  sure,  noble  spot  out  of  reach  of  the  swirling  tide 
of  existence ;  and  a  day  thus  arrives  when  every  woman 
capable  of  reflecting  and  of  loving  throws  a  questioning  look 
on  what  is  around  her. 

And  then,  what  answer  does  she  get  from  the  great 
mystery  of  life  ?  She  sees  a  gigantic  system  of  force  and 
matter  in  interaction,  set  in  motion,  working,  displaying 
itself  under  the  silent  impulse  of  an  invisible  power,  and 
having  neither  existence  nor  beauty  apart  from  an  end 
external  to  itself.  The  governor  of  this  world  is  man, 
endowed  with  an  intelligence  more  potent  than  matter,  so 
that  he  finds  himself  placed  here  below  as  the  ambassador 
of  life  and  the  type  of  beauty.  He  himself  obeys  practically 
one  only  motive  power,  love  ;  he  cannot  be  strongly  stirred 
save  by  passion.  Thus  the  whole  world  obeys  the  law  of 
beauty  and  of  love.  Truth  and  goodness  form,  so  to  speak, 
its  skeleton ;  beauty  is  its  Hie  ;  love,  the  instrument  of  its 
life.  Certain  modern  aesthetes,  seeking  to  establish  an 
antinomy  between  man  and  Nature,  represent  man  as  a  foe 
who  in  employing  Nature  necessarily  violates  and  deforms 
her,  whereas  left  to  herself  she  would  be  always  lovely.1  To 
subordinate  man  to  Nature  in  this  way  seems  to  us  untrue 

1  Buskin's  favourite  theory. 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   LIFE  139 

and  disastrous.  Surely  the  contrary  is  the  case:  we  may 
put  anything  to  wrong  uses,  but  material  forces  cannot  but 
gain  if  we  direct  them  aright.  Our  part  is  to  live  in 
harmony  with  Nature,  conformably  to  the  magnificent  and 
universal  law  that  love  grows  by  spending  itself.  "  Go  and 
give  all  your  goods  to  feed  the  poor,"  says  the  Gospel :  that 
is  nobility  !  Sow,  give  :  give  always !  Give  the  labour  of 
the  arm  to  the  fields  as  yet  sterile;  give  your  heart  to 
hearts  that  are  dull  and  dead !  Beauty  and  niggardliness 
cannot  live  together.  At  one  end  of  the  scale  there  are 
those  who  are  incapable  of  giving,  frozen  hard,  as  it  were, 
against  love  :  at  the  other  are  those  who  in  a  splendid  pro- 
fusion of  generosity  pour  out  their  gifts  without  taking 
count  of  them :  and  the  whole  world  lies  between.  From 
the  pebble  sensible  only  to  mechanical  attraction,  to  the 
flower  that  scents  the  air,  one  profound  idea  holds  good,  one 
great  song  rises,  all  mortal  things  cry  in  unison,  and  the 
burden  of  their  united  voices  is,  love.  Every  moving  thing 
tends  to  entwine  itself  about  something  else,  to  unite 
inextricably  with  it ;  all  life  tends  to  pour  itself  into  another, 
to  surrender  itself,  and  thereby  it  has  a  second  birth,  and  all 
individual  vibrations  coalesce  into  one  grand  note.  And, 
above  this  symphony  of  material  things,  the  heart  of  man 
outpours  itself  in  similar  strains  in  the  spiritual  spheres 
of  true  life  which  stretch  up  to  God.  The  love  of  man,  to 
adopt  the  phrase  in  the  Imitation,  is  a  cry  flung  out  towards 
God. 

Love,  then,  is  the  ruling  principle  of  the  world,  a  noble, 
superb,  necessary  thing;  extending  its  broad  wings  it  easily 
dominates  the  littlenesses  and  conventions  of  life,  responds 
to  all  needs,  whether  of  the  individual  soul  or  of  society,  sets 
frail  hearts  athrob  with  life.  But  it  is  obvious,  too,  what  a 
strife  it  is  sure  to  excite,  by  its  double  nature,  between  spirit 
and  matter — a  strife  wonderful  and  delightful  and  fierce. 

Women  are  so  constituted  as  to  understand  this  sharp 
antagonism  between  material  love  and  spiritual  love — 
women,  who,  at  a  certain  crisis  of  life,  feel  so  strongly  the 
contrast  between  the  cruelties  and  ironies  of  material 
things  and  the  refinements  of  the  heart.  They  drag 
about  a  body  often  feeble,  suffering,  wretched,  a  mis- 
shapen, bleeding,  shamefast  body,  a  pain-stricken  body, 
born  for  love  and  worship,  but  subdued  to  the  surgeon. 


140      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

There  comes  a  time  when  they  would  fain  forget  the  animal 
and  wash  it  of  its  impurities  if  possible;  their  soul  has 
become  more  intensely  spiritual.  If  they  shudder  at  the 
recollection  of  certain  physical  necessities,  through  that  very 
fact  the  secret  of  happiness  appears  to  them  simpler,  more 
luminous,  less  clogged  with  matter;  branded  by  life,  as 
certain  mystics  bore  the  brands  of  divine  love,  with  sides 
pierced  and  limbs  explored  and  broken  by  the  hands  of  men, 
they  are  athirst  for  love,  enthusiasm  and  worship,  they 
understand  that  no  intellectual  hair-splitting,  no  doctrinal 
analysis,  is  worth  a  snatch  of  love.  They  know  the  sweet- 
ness of  things.  I  will  go  farther:  they  know  the  extra- 
ordinary influence  of  moral  forces  on  physical  health  ;  the 
body,  like  society  at  large,  needs  to  be  reinvigorated  by  soul 
and  heart. 

The  truth  strikes  upon  them  vividly  by  a  sort  of  intuition. 
But  it  is  far  from  being  the  case  that  all  women  are  able  to 
profit  by  it,  because  they  have  to  reckon  with  a  thousand 
practical  obstacles :  they  require  great  liberty  of  mind  and  a 
large  share  of  energy  if  they  are  to  avoid  being  restrained  by 
a  host  of  more  or  less  respectable  prejudices,  conventions, 
and  usages.  After  all,  timidity,  indifference  and  frivolity 
are  very  natural  things. 

Particularly  in  France,  women  needed  genuine  courage 
to  assert  their  resolution  to  act  and  take  part  in  social 
work,  in  the  midst  of  a  society  essentially  constituted 
to  prevent  them  from  giving  effective  expression  to  their 
ideas — a  society  that  was  strenuous,  Philistine,  utterly 
strange  to  philosophy  and  imaginative  thinking,  hidebound 
to  traditions  of  very  rudimentary  common-sense  and  a  proud 
simplicity,  composed  of  families  desirous  of  living  in  their 
own  fashion  under  the  direction  of  their  head,  with  no  grand 
notion  of  forming  parts  of  one  stupendous  whole.  The  king 
was  the  head  of  the  principal  family  ;  on  this  account,  men 
showed  the  most  artless  veneration  for  his  person,  but  so 
long  as  the  army  was  duly  organised  and  the  frontiers 
properly  defended  at  the  least  possible  expense,  they  troubled 
themselves  very  little  about  their  sovereign's  existence.  So 
the  despotic  power  of  the  husband  was  not  merely  domestic, 
but  political :  the  man  was  lord  of  the  lands  and  the  village 
as  he  was  of  his  wife,  and  he  administered  the  whole  without 
stirring  up  many  ideas,  in  intimate  communion  with  his 


THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  LIFE  141 

oxen  and  his  oaks.  Again  and  again  we  find  in  portraits 
the  rubicund  faces  of  these  honest-eyed  country  squires. 
There  was  nothing  extraordinary  or  gigantic  about  such  a 
man  ;  he  was  a  man  of  iron,  that  was  all ;  and  beside  this 
substantial  creature  vegetated,  half-stifled,  that  fine  and 
precious  flower  his  wife,  sometimes  a  frail  delicate  thing 
with  liquid  eyes  charmingly  veiled,  all  compact  of  concen- 
trated passion,  placid  tenderness,  and  impressionabilit}'. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  strange  contrast  with  this  individual- 
istic society  which  lived  in  isolation  as  a  matter  of  principle, 
there  then  flourished  at  court,  in  the  cities,  and  in  certain 
great  chateaux  an  extremely  active  society,  that  of  the  salons. 
Effervescent,  noisy  like  fresh  arrivals,  ceremonious,  gilded, 
of  a  refined  and  factitious  elegance,  it  represented  what  many 
writers  called  the  "  theatre  of  the  world " :  marvellous 
stage  scenery,  which  underwent  remarkable  transformations 
under  the  shifting  play  of  the  side-lights,  forming  a  back- 
ground against  which  the  players  strutted  through  their 
parts.  Who  were  these  actors  ?  Whence  came  they,  whither 
were  they  going  ?  These  were  questions  about  which  often 
enough  there  was  little  information  and  less  concern ;  some- 
times it  was  thought  best  to  ignore  them  altogether,  for, 
thank  heaven !  it  was  not  to  grow  mouldy  in  the  depths  of 
the  country  that  a  man  intrigued,  nor  was  assassination  a 
means  towards  opening  a  grocer's  shop.  Occasionally,  and 
usually  when  the  curtain  fell  on  a  financial  act,  someone 
disappeared,  but  without  tragic  accompaniments,  and  then 
(except  Semblancay,1  who  was  hanged)  he  reappeared  and 
went  on  with  the  pantomime.  There  was  nothing  but 
praise  for  the  noble  use  Admiral  de  Graville  made  of  his 
princely  fortune,  which  was  the  object  of  some  discussion. 
Du  Plessis  so  cleverly  extricated  himself  from  the  toils 
of  justice  that  he  could  bequeath  to  us  the  admirable 
Cardinal   Richelieu.      The   Bohiers,  BriQonnets,  Robertets, 

1  [Minister  of  finance  to  Francis  I. ,  a  faithful  and  honourable  servant  of 
the  crown.  Lautrec,  governor  of  Milan,  having  asked  for  400,000  crowns  as 
arrears  of  pay  for  his  troops,  the  queen-mother,  Louise  of  Savoy,  who  had 
a  grudge  against  him,  seized  all  the  money  in  the  treasury  on  the  pretext 
that  it  was  owing  to  her,  and  even  intercepted  what  little  coin  Semblancay 
was  able  to  get  together.  The  result  was  that  Lautrec's  army  melted  away 
and  Milan  was  lost.  Louise  made  Semblancay  the  scapegoat,  and  when 
Francis,  after  his  defeat  at  Pavia,  was  carried  a  prisoner  to  Spain,  she 
threw  Semblancay  (he  was  72  years  old)  into  the  Bastille,  had  him  tried  on 
trumped-up  charges,  and  brought  about  his  execution.] 


142      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Duprats,1  and  many  another,  small  or  great,  erected  in  all 
security  their  splendid  chateaux,  triumphs  of  art,  but  a  sort 
of  affront  to  the  old  machicolations  crumbling  in  cold  neglect 
under  the  moss.     In  those  days  Gold  was  king. 

All  this  splendour  and  grace,  this  brilliant  life,  which 
seemed  bound  to  make  everything  around  dim  by  com- 

Earison,  nevertheless  by  no  means  dazzled  the  common  herd, 
ut  at  first  aroused  a  feeling  of  repulsion,  if  not  of  jealousy. 
Outcries  arose.  Wealth  was  apparently  losing  its  character 
of  a  kindly  and  patriarchal  simplicity,  to  bring  into  greater 
prominence  the  figures  of  proud  and  self-important  men  who 
believed  their  wealth  would  purchase  everything — virtue, 
wit,  honour,  as  easily  as  a  rare  picture.  A  poor  man 
accordingly  was  set  down  as  a  "  soulless  body  " ;  the  virtuous 
man  was  one  who  lived  in  a  palace,  while  the  man  who  gave 
a  dinner-party  was  a  master-mind. 

To  tyranny  of  this  sort  there  was  added  the  individual  or 
social  misfortunes  of  a  society  naturally  unstable  and  con- 
tinually recruiting  itself  by  means  of  speculation.  Thence 
arose  outcries:  "You  make  so  many  poor  folk  cry  alack! 
alack !  that  we  long  to  see  you  fall  headlong  in  the  dust !  "  * 
Gold  and  pleasure  were  the  deities  to  whom  we  owe  the 
charming  eighteenth  century.  But  they  lead  to  revolutions. 
This  fact  came  out  clearly,  indeed  too  clearly,  in  Italy,  and 
compelled  men  to  endeavour  to  restrain  these  two  great 
world  forces  within  wholesome  limits.  In  the  fifteenth 
century  Christian  socialism  reared  its  head  high  at  Florence 
and  Rome,  and  under  stress  of  its  menaces  a  science  of 
philosophy  came  to  birth. 

In  presence  of  this  social  peril,  certain  men,  compelled  to 
issue  from  their  egotism,  pointed  out  the  road  for  timid 
women  to  follow  to  avoid  vengeful  reprisals.  Men  of  affairs, 
bankers,  notaries  and  others  banded  themselves  together 
with  the  firm  resolution  of  forgoing  business,  interests, 
ambitions,  even  their  for  the  most  part  despotic  hopes  in 
state  intervention,  of  seeking  to  practise  self-devotion,  and 
of  borrowing,  if  necessary,  something  of  the  idealism  of 

1[Bohier  was  a  jurisconsult,  Briconnet,  bishop  of  Lod6ve  and  Meaux,  and 
an  insincere  persecutor  of  the  Reformers  ;  Robertet  was  treasurer  of  France 
under  Louis  All.  and  Francis  I.  ;  and  Duprat  a  venal  minister  of  Francis  I. 
and  a  partisan  of  Louise  of  Savoy.] 

•Coquillart. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  LIFE  143 

philosophers  and  artists,  so  that  they  might  give  a  practical 
sanction  to  their  high  station  by  working  to  raise  others. 
The  Florentine  people  swallowed  the  bait ;  at  once  ardent 
and  refined,  they  admirably  blended  practical  reasoning 
with  ideal  aspirations.     And  so  the  first  step  was  taken. 

However,  it  was  more  particularly  at  Rome  that  this 
idea,  still  rudimentary  and  ill-defined,  of  purifying  life  and 
pursuing  social  happiness  by  means  of  the  tender  charm  of 
the  Beautiful  made  progress.  It  found  there  a  well-prepared 
soil.  Intellectual  culture  and  elegance  of  speech  did  not 
represent  at  Rome,  as  they  did  elsewhere,  a  mere  ornamenta- 
tion, they  were  the  very  substance  of  the  state.  Money 
was  intellectualised  as  regards  its  origin  and  its  end,  and 
nowhere  had  men  a  better  conception  of  an  oligarchical 
society,  a  republic  regulated  by  absolute  power.  The  heads 
of  the  church  formed  a  unique  world  of  their  own,  as  little 
tainted  by  the  military  or  frivolous  character  with  which 
certain  aristocracies  were  reproached  as  by  the  taste  for 
coarse  pleasures  natural  to  some  self-made  men.  They 
showed  indeed  a  living  example  of  a  true  aristocracy,  in  the 
exact  signification  of  the  word,  that  is  to  say,  a  body  of 
men  of  varied  degrees  of  rank,  raised  high  above  the  common 
run  of  men  by  some  eminent  gift — some  by  high  political 
position  or  distinguished  birth,  others  by  a  large  fortune, 
others  by  great  accomplishments,  renowned  virtue,  profound 
learning,  striking  talents.  They  abhorred  cliques  and  their 
pettinesses ;  to  greatness  of  position  should  correspond 
greatness  of  ideas.  And  this  splendid  aristocracy,  thus 
composed  of  the  choice  flower  of  society,  delighted  in  tracing 
its  descent  from  remote  ancestors.  It  set  no  store  either  on 
high  ancestry  (though  some  were  of  brilliant  descent),  or  on 
a  display  of  wealth  (though  some  had  enormous  fortunes) ; 
it  ventured  to  connect  itself  with  all  the  most  illustrious 
and  conspicuous  names  in  the  past  history  of  the  human 
race  from  the  time  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans:  Plato, 
Socrates,  Archimedes,  and  Cicero  were  its  ancestors.  And 
thus,  with  a  strange  persistence,  it  constantly  tended  to  lift 
into  its  own  ranks  by  its  example,  its  doctrines  and  its 
easy  accessibility  all  men  who  felt  within  themselves  a 
spark  of  genius  or  talent,  or  even  ambition  merely. 

This  atmosphere  was  very  favourable  to  the  development 
of  the   theory   of  social  aesthetics   of  which   Castiglione 


144      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

has  etched  the  principal  features.  "Luxury  must  be 
opposed,  even  if  we  have  recourse  to  law ;  social  life  must 
be  given  a  moral  and  governmental  goal  ;  to  keep  the 
appetites  under,  the  laws  must  find  effectual  support  in 
custom.  The  power  of  a  single  ruler  fosters  corruption  ;  but 
it  has  this  advantage — that  wisdom,  goodness  and  justice 
are  more  easily  found  in  a  single  individual  supported  by 
strong  traditions  than  in  a  fortuitous  assemblage  of  obscure 
citizens."  What  is  wanted  is  to  institute  a  kingship  in  the 
world  for  which  justice  and  beauty  are  the  qualifications, 
and  which  is  thus  more  real  and  of  a  diviner  right  than  any 
other.  Mammon,  that  is,  the  love  of  gold,  the  love  of  power 
and  pleasure,  can  only  reign  in  a  world  of  night,  when  we 
have  eyes  but  cannot  see,  when  we  have  lips  from  which  no 
human  cry  issues,  when  we  are  dead  to  enthusiasm,  and 
when  our  whole  life  consists  in  eating  and  drinking. 

In  France  the  socialist  danger,  presenting  itself  in  a  much 
less  acute  form,  could  not  produce  the  same  effects.  The 
people  who  were  to  show  their  teeth  fifty  years  later  were 
as  yet  silent,  and  there  was  no  anxiety  about  the  future 
except  among  the  cultivated  classes.  Moneyed  people  bore 
themselves  with  becoming  modesty,  and  remained  on  the 
best  of  terms  with  the  most  notable  representatives  of  the 
old  nobility.  But  the  nobility,  being  no  longer  feudal,  was 
no  longer  of  much  account,  and  a  moral  crisis  of  exceeding 
gravity  took  place  in  the  ranks  of  this  aristocracy  based 
wholly  on  birth  and  fortune.  Sheer  vanity  took  the  place 
of  pride;  the  "smoke"1  of  titles  became  a  more  powerful 
motive  than  the  love  of  glory. 

The  great  financiers  almost  all  became  barons,  in  order  to 
get  above  finance ;  the  holders  of  fiefs  became  barons, 
counts  and  marquises.  Ordinary  mortals  came  to  hold 
fiefs ;  the  most  insignificant  dovecot  was  transformed 
into  a  chateau.  Society  moved  on  a  step,  and  everybody 
was  satisfied.  It  was  quite  a  steeplechase  in  the  Italian 
style.  Pontanus,2  for  all  his  malicious  ridicule  of  it,  had 
himself  vainly  solicited  the  title  of  baron.  The  good  duke 
of  Urbino,  a  great  philosopher  whose  elevation  was  of  very 

*"Have  you  never  reflected,  then,"  says  an  old  author,  "what  this 
Bmoke  is  worth?"  (Baltazar  Gracian). 

^[Italian  poet  and  historian  (1426-1503),  the  most  'elegant'  writer  of 
the  sixteenth  century.     He  wrote  Amorum  libri  n.,  on  conjugal  love.1 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF  LIFE  145 

recent  date,  employed  the  assassin's  knife  to  put  out  of  the 
way  a  girl  of  the  lesser  nobility  whom  his  eldest  son  loved 
and  wished  to  marry,  and  Louise  of  Savoy  warmly  approved 
of  this  magnificent  implacability.1 

Pedigrees  assumed  wonderful  proportions.  Only  those 
who  had  the  moral  simplicity  of  Margaret  of  Austria  were 
content  with  the  ancient  kings  of  Germany  for  ancestors; 
every  Scottish  archer,  no  matter  how  insignificant,  claimed 
descent  from  the  ancient  kings  of  Scotland.  Louise  of  Savoy 
made  a  beginning  by  modestly  connecting  the  French  house 
with  the  most  ancient  of  royal  dynasties,  that  of  Babylon. 

Some  went  even  farther.  They  dived  into  the  remote 
and  shadowy  depths  of  history,  the  ages  of  stone  and  iron, 
when  some  wild  girl  became  their  ancestress  through  a 
chance  meeting  with  a  savage  in  a  wood,  and  when  five 
minutes'  rain  instead  of  sunlight  would  have  been  enough 
to  wash  a  whole  race  of  men  from  the  page  of  immortality. 
Anne  of  Brittany  was  descended  from  one  of  the  giants 
sprung  direct  from  mother  Earth.  Rabelais  with  great 
gravity  presents  his  hero  to  us  in  his  exact  style  as  son  of 
one  of  the  original  sons  of  Earth  :  "Would  to  God,"  he  adds, 
"that  everyone  was  as  well  acquainted  with  his  pedigree 
from  the  time  of  the  Flood ! " 

But  in  reality,  under  cover  of  these  novel  and  pedantic 
vanities,  money,  with  its  brutality  and  vulgarity  and  appeal 
to  vulgar  minds,  led  the  dance  and  dragged  the  pick  of  the 
nation  pellmell  after  it.  The  Balsac  of  the  time,  Robert  de 
Balsac,  fills  a  good  many  pages  with  examples  of  the  crowd 
of  worldlings  who,  as  he  expresses  it,  hurried  in  unbridled, 
almost  frantic  haste  on  the  road  to  beggary.2     There  are 

1  Heptameron,  Tale  51. 

2  Gallants,  ambitious  men,  fashionable  men  late  abed  and  late  up,  those 
who  live  on  credit,  litigious  fellows,  spendthrifts,  poor  devils  who  marry 
for  love  without  a  penny,  loafers,  philosophers  who  live  from  hand  to 
mouth,  soldiers  who  run  through  a  quarter's  pay  in  a  month,  husbands 
ruined  by  their  wives'  dressmakers'  bills  or  their  servants'  guzzling,  men 
who  keep  no  accounts,  who,  without  being  princes  or  lords,  put  eighteen 
yards  of  velvet  into  one  costume,  who  spend  much  and  get  little,  who  let 
their  horses  starve,  their  tapestries  and  furniture  moulder,  who  leave  their 
orchards  to  be  robbed,  who  would  not  spend  a  penny  but  fling  away  a 
shilling,  who  endow  their  daughters  too  largely,  who  toil  without  rhyme 
or  reason,  who  accept  financial  responsibilities.  .  .  .  weak-kneed  men  who 
back  out  of  their  lawsuits,  who  are  led  by  the  nose  by  those  about  them, 
who  are  always  singing  a  gaudeamus  and  never  a  requiem,  braggarts, 
giddypates,  boasters,  "Roger  Goodfellows,"  gormandisers,  debauchees. 

K 


146      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

voluptuaries,  debauchees,  spendthrifts,  men  gorged  with 
gold,  yet  athirst  for  more,  tumultuously  dashing  on  and 
upwards  in  frightful  torment  and  agitation  towards  a  will 
o'  the  wisp ;  one  after  another  they  fall  headlong  into  the 
gulf,  while  the  foreground  is  filled  with  the  eternal  proces- 
sion moving  on  with  slow  pace  and  clockwork  regularity. 
Alongside  of  this  mad  insolent  triumph  of  gold  fierce 
hatreds  develop,  and  men  begin  to  speak  under  their  breath 
of  the  horrible  triumph  of  wretchedness  approaching,  and 
can  foretell  the  hour  when  materialism  from  below  will 
make  its  awful  response  to  materialism  from  above. 

Women  ought  to  have  remedied  this  state  of  things. 
They  ought  to  have  prevented  men  from  becoming  besotted 
and  ruining  themselves.  Anne  of  France  dared  not  suggest 
to  all  these  idle  nobles  that  they  might  occupy  themselves 
with  intellectual  things,  but  she  was  anxious  at  least  to 
brace  them  up  by  a  life  of  physical  endurance.  Without 
military  courage,  she  declares,  the  nobility  resembles  "  a 
withered  tree,"  without  valour  "it  is  nothing  worth." 

What  she  was  losing  hope  of,  a  fraction  of  the  clergy  set 
themselves  to  win.  There  was,  among  the  mass  of  cassocked 
peasants  and  rochetted  aristocrats,  a  small  group  of  culti- 
vated men  drawing  its  inspiration  from  the  Cardinal  of 
Amboise,1  less  audacious  than  Rome,  less  retrograde  than 
Germany.  These  recognised  the  traditional  merits  of  mili- 
tary glory,  birth,  and  money,  but  would  have  liked  to 
reconcile  them  with  the  newer  virtues,  blend  them  together 
into  one  radiance,  homogeneous  like  the  sunbeam,  which  is 
composed  of  colours  so  various;  they  would  have  liked  to 
see  all  these  glories  combining,  as  at  Rome,  into  one  rainbow- 
like effulgence.  A  monk  of  Cluny,  Clichtoue,  begs,  beseeches 
well-born  young  men  to  shun  the  enervating  paths  of 
infatuation,  idleness  and  vice.  He  has  endless  examples 
showing  the  possibility  of  alliance  between  literary  tastes  2 
and  the  military  life;  he  reveres  the  principles  of  rank  so 
highly  as  to  discern  them  in  application  everywhere,  even 
among  the  metals ;  but  he  longs  ardently  to  bind  into  one 

f1  George  of  Amboise,  the  wealthy  Archbishop  of  Rouen :  a  great  builder 
and  art-patron,  who  brought  many  painters  and  sculptors  and  architects 
into  France  from  Italy.  When  he  died  Pope  Julius  II.  "  thanked  God  he 
was  now  Pope  alone  " !  The  cardinal's  tomb  in  Rouen  Cathedral  is  one  of 
the  finest  pieces  of  Renaissance  work  in  France.] 

*  Which  included,  we  may  say  in  passing,  music  and  gymnastics. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE  147 

sheaf  all  the  vital  forces  of  society ;  he  is  a  philosopher,  one 
may  even  say  a  sort  of  John  the  Baptist.  He  proclaims 
Plato;  he  is  more  scriptural  than  Luther,  and  has  as  much 
antique  culture  as  any  Roman  prelate;1  to  him  the  future 
seems  to  outline  itself  clearly.  "  After  virtue,"  he  says,  "  a 
noble  can  have  no  comelier  ornament  than  letters.  Philo- 
sophy is  not  the  recipient,  but  the  source  of  nobility."  He 
adjures  distinguished  men  to  pay  real  attention  to  the  social 
obligations  incumbent  on  them,  under  penalty  of  losing 
their  rank.  He  does  not  disavow  the  natural  pleasure  a 
man  takes  in  the  thought  that  he  has  had  ancestors  and 
will  have  descendants,  but  to  him  this  does  not  seem  a 
sufficient  though  an  honourable  aim  in  life.  If  no  means 
are  found  of  uniting  the  two  nobilities,  that  of  the  body  and 
that  of  the  mind,  no  doubt  (in  his  opinion)  the  nobility  of 
the  mind  will  get  the  upper  hand;  Solomon,  who  is  not 
generally  considered  a  modern  or  even  a  socialist,  had 
already  said  so  long  ago  :  "  I  myself  also  am  mortal,  like  to 
other  men,  and  am  sprung  from  the  terrestrial  lineage  of  the 
first  man.  And  in  the  womb  of  a  mother  was  I  moulded 
into  flesh.  And  I  also,  when  I  was  born,  drew  in  the 
common  air  and  fell  upon  the  kindred  earth,  uttering,  like 
all  men,  for  my  first  voice  the  self-same  wail :  in  swaddling 
clothes  was  I  nursed,  and  with  watchful  cares.  Who  among 
the  kings  had  any  other  beginning  ?  All  men  have  one 
entrance  into  life,  and  a  like  departure." 

Clichtoue,  however,  as  well  as  his  friends  the  Lamennais 
and  Montalemberts  of  the  period,  confined  himself  to  coun- 
sels and  prognostics,  which  indeed  the  future  was  in  great 
part  to  justify  ;  he  had  not  yet  discovered  the  exact  formula. 
He  had  it  at  the  tip  of  his  tongue,  but  could  not  give 
it  utterance ;  it  seemed  as  though  in  France  the  words 
'  beauty  '  and  '  love '  were  no  words  for  a  man  or  a  church- 
man. These  noble  and  lofty  words  were  to  come  from  a 
higher  sphere,  and  from  women's  lips. 

It  was  Margaret  of  France  who  at  last  uttered  them,  and 
they  were  echoed  around  her. 

Here  we  find  the  remedy  so  ardently  sought  for  against 
materialism,  as  Jean  Bouchet  explains  it  on  Margaret's 
behalf:  "To  purify  the  world,  to  eliminate  its  coarser 
elements ;  to  give  wealth  only  the  lowest  place  as  a  source 

1  But  he  did  not  mean  to  be  absorbed  by  either  the  one  or  the  other. 


148      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

of  social  distinction,  and  even  then  only  on  condition  that 
the  plutocrat  lives  nobly,  that  is  to  say,  unselfishly,  and 
makes  noble  deeds  his  constant  study."  True  nobility  is 
not  a  cockade,  a  label,  a  name,  but  a  moral  reality ;  "  it 
springs  from  the  soul,  and  not  from  wealth."  Noble  and 
lofty  spirits  are  recognised  precisely  by  their  innate  simpli- 
city ;  they  leave  the  gildings,  the  pompous  blazonments,  to 
"  the  sons  of  swineherds,  sempsters,  stockingers,  and  other 
mechanical  folk.  But  those  who  are  illustrious  by  long 
descent  reveal  their  nobility  beyond  possibility  of  mistake, 
for  they  have  in  them  something,  I  know  not  what,  of 
naive  goodwill  that  manifestly  separates  them  from  the 
arrogant  assumptions  of  false  nobles."  Spirited,  showy,  a 
genuine  blue-blood,  restive  under  marital  authority,  but 
quivering  to  her  inmost  fibres  at  the  slightest  appeal  of  a 
refined  sentiment,  Margaret  of  France  remained  obstinately 
faithful  to  these  principles,  finding  in  them  the  pole-star  that 
guided  her  steps  throughout  life.  The  words  we  last  quoted 
were  uttered  in  circumstances  which  give  them  a  special  force, 
namely,  in  the  funeral  oration  of  Scaevola  de  Sainte-Marthe, 
who  thought  he  could  cast  upon  the  princess's  tomb  no 
sweeter  flowers,  none  more  likely  to  blossom  eternally. 
Margaret  herself  never  lost  an  opportunity  of  emphasising 
with  all  her  force  the  terrible  fear  she  had  of  the  power  of 
money. 

Aimer  l'argent, 

Sinon  pour  s'en  aider,  c'est  servir  les  idoles  !  1 

In  regard  to  those  who  deal  with  humanity  like  brokers, 
and  believe  that  happiness  is  purchasable,  she  gives  vent 
to  passionate  apostrophes  worthy  of  the  most  ardent 
Christian  socialists: 

Ilz  ont  plaisirs  tant  qu'ils  en  veulent  prendre, 
Ilz  ont  nonneurs  s'ilz  y  veulent  pretendre, 
Ilz  ont  des  biens  plus  qu'il  ne  leur  en  fault. 2 

And  this  was  precisely  what  men  were  aiming  at.  The  military 
framework  of  society  was  broken ;  to  replace  it  by  a  finan- 

1  To  love  money 
Save  for  its  use,  is  rank  idolatry. 

2  They  have  what  pleasures  they  desire, 
Honours  whereto  they  dare  aspire, 
And  wealth  much  more  than  they  require. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE  149 

cial  framework  would  have  been  considered  almost  criminal ; 
and  that  was  where  the  great  danger  lay.  To  employ  a 
comparison  approved  by  Francis  L,  two  cars  are  running 
the  world's  course  side  by  side;  a  choice  must  be  made 
between  them.  One  is  the  car  of  Plutus,  filled  with  gold, 
lechery,  vice;  the  other  is  the  car  of  Honour  and  Love, 
thronged  about  by  all  the  virtues.1  The  choice  is  clear :  for 
its  own  happiness,  for  its  own  glory,  the  world  must  reject 
the  worship  of  money,  trample  on  the  power  of  money,  and 
proclaim  the  power  of  vh'tuous  love. 

Thus,  little  by  little,  the  formula  sought  for  emerges  into 
view.  A  wonderful  light  is  thrown  on  the  problem  when  it 
is  admitted  that  to  be  happy  it  is  necessary  to  rise  above 
material  things,  and  establish  society  upon  a  philosophy  ot 
love.  Life  and  beauty,  they  are  the  true  riches !  The 
feeblest  of  men,  the  most  hopeless  invalids,  the  vilest  out- 
casts, woman  with  her  feeble  body  and  ardent  soul,  are 
richer  than  a  nugget  of  gold,  more  eternal  than  the  Alps, 
greater  than  the  sea  and  the  vast  realm  of  nature,  for  this 
very  reason  that  they  have  in  them  life,  the  true  life, 
that  is,  consciousness  of  life,  confidence  in  life,  and  love 
of  life. 

And  the  same  idea  that  happiness  must  be  sought  through 
true  life,  led  men  to  recognise  the  necessity  of  considering 
the  'hygiene'  of  this  life.  Medicine,  care  and  pity  had 
been  up  to  that  time  only  for  the  ills  of  the  body,  for  the 
gaping,  gory  wounds  that  came  under  the  eye  ;  the  wounds 
of  heart  and  spirit  had  been  forgotten.  To  render  life 
sumptuous  and  brilliant,  to  fritter  it  away  in  a  sort  of  giddy 
excitement  or  intoxication,  was  the  utmost  of  men's  achieve- 
ment. The  heart  cannot  be  bought ;  there  is  no  specific  for 
healing  its  wounds;  they  must  heal  themselves. 

The  art  will  consist  then,  in  realising  as  far  as  may  be 
the  plenitude  of  life ;  in  other  words,  in  extracting  from 
Christianity,  which  is  Hope  and  Charity,  an  aesthetic  philo- 
sophy. "  I  am  the  God  of  the  living,"  said  the  Master.  If 
we  combine  the  sayings  on  life  scattered  through  the  gospels 
we  obtain  a  true  code  of  aestheticism,  while  the  sayings  on 

1  Almanque  Papillon's  La  Vicloire  et  Triomphe  d'argent  (Lyons,  1537). 
A  copy  belonging  to  Baron  Pichon  includes  two  miniatures:  (1)  the 
Triumph  of  Money,  (2)  the  Triumph  of  Honour  and  Love,  represented  by 
Francis  I.  in  a  car  drawn  by  two  unicorns,  and  led  by  Diligence,  Sapience, 
Sobriety  and  Virtue. 


150      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

love  form  the  warp  and  woof  of  the  doctrine.  On  the 
morrow  of  the  Resurrection,  when  the  rude  fishers  chosen 
to  disseminate  the  sacred  tidings  are  in  utter  ignorance  of 
the  event,  the  Master  shows  Himself  first  of  all  to  Love  :  He 
appears  at  the  gates  of  a  mysterious  gai'den  by  which  Mary 
Magdalene  is  about  to  pass — Mary,  a  woman  pardoned, 
glorified,  because  she  loved  much,  because  she  sinned 
through  superabundant  kindliness. 

This  doctrine  of  love  had  not  prospered  in  the  world, 
where  it  found  briers  too  deeply  rooted,  thorns  too  cruel ;  it 
had  become  a  supernatural  and  sacred  thing,  so  sublime  that 
it  fled  the  world  and  took  refuge  in  the  cloister,  like  a  sickly 
plant  in  a  hothouse,  leaving  a  free  field  for  vice.  Tenderness 
seemed  to  come  only  from  feebleness ;  every  form  of  art 
seemed  immoral,  all  love  a  degenerate  and  ill-balanced 
thing,  and  no  one  realised  the  need  goodness  has  of  intelli- 
gence. The  pettinesses  of  feminine  religiosity,  encouraged, 
unhappily,  by  a  section  of  the  clergy,  tended  to  make  divine 
love  itself  ineffectual  and  almost  ridiculous.  Yet  the  author 
of  the  Imitation  has  defined  love  as  the  true  source  of 
activity : 

"  Nothing  is  there  in  Heaven  or  earth  sweeter  than  love, 
nothing  stronger,  broader,  higher,  fuller,  better,  or  more  win- 
some, for  love  is  of  God,  nor  can  it  rest  but  in  Him,  above 
the  world  created.  The  lover  runneth  and  flieth,  and  is  alive 
with  joy ;  he  is  free,  and  nothing  restraineth  him ;  he  giveth 
all  for  all,  hath  all  in  all,  because  he  resteth  above  all  things 
in  the  one  sovereign  good  whence  all  other  goodnesses  pro- 
ceed and  flow.  He  looketh  not  to  gifts,  but  raiseth  himself 
above  all  to  look  only  to  the  giver.  Love  often  knoweth 
no  limit,  but  its  fervour  carrieth  it  far  above  measure. 
Love  feeleth  no  weight,  making  light  of  toil,  would  do  more 
than  it  is  able,  pleadeth  no  impossibility,  because  it  thinketh 
it  may  and  can  do  all.  Wherefore  it  is  strong  for  anything, 
and  where  he  that  loveth  not  doth  faint  and  fail,  love  doeth 
and  achieveth  many  things."1 

Why  then  had  not  this  beautiful  religion,  this  beautiful 
philosophy  become  the  religion  and  philosophy  of  the 
world  ?  Why  had  they  not  sent  their  streams  of  activity 
flowing  in  ever-widening  channels  ?  Men  wished  to  solve 
this  problem,  and  restore  to  the  world  the  philosophy  it  had 

i  Imitation  of  Christ,  book  Hi.,  chap.  v. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF   LIFE  151 

so  misunderstood — to  interpret  love  as  it  should  be  inter- 
preted, through  impressions  and  sensibility,  and  not  through 
the  intellect.  Hence  Castiglione's  saying,  "  God  is  only  seen 
through  women." 

This  saying,  it  is  clear,  does  not  apply  to  all  women ;  it 
has  reference  to  those  who  are  worthy  to  exercise  an  active 
influence. 

Natural  obstacles  oppose  themselves  to  this  mission  of 
philosophically  raising  the  world  to  nobler  ideas  by  the 
social  religion  of  beauty.  The  French  are  a  matter-of-fact, 
practical,  sceptical  people ;  between  the  peasant  and  his 
cattle,  the  lord  and  the  peasant,  there  exists  a  solid  and 
after  all  a  pleasant  relationship.  Further,  the  French  are 
specially  hostile  to  ideas  of  an  intellectual  hierarchy,  they 
lack  sensibility,  the  beautiful  displeases  and  shocks  them, 
and  when  a  revolution  gives  them  what  they  call  a  moment's 
freedom,  they  amuse  themselves  by  defacing  as  many 
statues  as  possible,  destroying  their  cathedrals,  burning 
their  historical  monuments  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  hate 
a  personal  grievance  can  inspire.  Likewise,  in  regard  to 
love,  modesty,  the  ideal,  and  all  refined  and  aesthetic  senti- 
ments, we  experience  a  certain  pleasure  in  scouting  them ; 
when  we  have  won  any  sort  of  diploma,  that  is  the  use  we 
make  of  it. 

And  yet,  do  what  we  may.  lofty  things  alone  can  elevate 
us :  on  the  mountain-top  we  breathe  a  different  air  from 
that  in  the  valley. 

We  must  raise  on  heights  above  us  eminent  women  who 
will  crucify  themselves,  if  need  be,  to  draw  soil-stained  men 
to  them,  according  to  Christ's  words,  "I  will  draw  all  things 
unto  me  " — women  endowed  with  all  that  glorifies — money 
(to  scorn  money  is  the  luxury  of  the  rich);  a  noble  blood 
clarified  on  stricken  fields,  or  through  intellectual  wrest- 
lings, a  spirit  original  and  pure.  Christ  was  at  once  the 
son  of  kings  and  the  Son  of  God !  This  is  the  consecration 
of  happiness  through  a  philosophy  of  emotion  and  sentiment. 
Plato  said  that  what  was  needed  for  the  happiness  of 
humanity,  was  "philosophers  who  rule,  or  kings  who 
philosophise.''  Do  not  believe  it !  What  is  wanted  is 
kings  who  govern,  and  women  who  philosophise.  Men 
will  always  imagine  that  liberty  and  equality  are  esta- 
blished by  act  of  Parliament ;   philosophy  is  to  them  only 


152      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

a  means  of  livelihood.  Cremonini,  a  famous  professor,  but  a 
wit,  said  when  he  took  leave  at  the  close  of  his  lectures: 
"  All  that  I  have  taught  you  is  true  according  to  Aristotle, 
but  not  in  an  absolute  sense :  you  might  as  well  believe  St. 
Roch  or  St.  Anthony."  Nifo1  contradicted  himself  with 
charming  serenity,  though  he  allowed  no  one  else  to  contra- 
dict him.  In  truth,  how  were  these  excellent  professors  of 
philosophy  to  know  that,  three  and  a  half  centuries  later,  a 
Mabilleau,  a  Fiorentino,  or  a  Ferri  would  doggedly  set 
themselves  to  unearth  their  unpublished  lucubrations  from 
the  dust  of  libraries,  and  throw  on  them  the  searchlight  of 
criticism  ? 

Men  had  reached  that  stage  of  lassitude  and  of  wisdom 
when  one  understands  perfectly  how  vain,  how  unworthy  ot 
occupying  a  thoughtful  man,  are  the  vagaries  of  logic- 
chopping.  There  are  only  two  vital  forces  ■  ambition  and 
love.  Anne  of  France  reckons  four :  beauty,  youth,  wealth, 
and  ambition ;  but  these  four  terms  are  reducible  to  the 
former  two.  A  doctrine  of  love,  therefore,  was  necessary, 
and  it  was  discovered  in  Plato. 

Thus  there  were  two  masters  in  opposition,  Plato  and 
Machiavelli. 

Plato  is  as  much  a  poet  as  a  philosopher,  as  worthy  of 
admiration  for  his  impressions  and  intuitions  as  for  his 
ideas.  He  believes  in  beauty.  It  had  been  said  that 
beauty  was  of  no  account,  that  it  had  no  place  in  the 
gospels,  that  form  signified  nothing  except  perhaps  by  way 
of  symbol,  that  truth  was  metaphysical.  That  error  had  to 
be  dismissed.  Beauty  has  a  real  existence,  and  plays  a 
supreme  part  in  this  world.  God  has  not  disowned  it, 
Scripture  reveals  Him  as  bestowing  life  bountifully,  and  as 
taking  pleasure  in  man  as  His  own  image.  Plato  in  effect 
develops  this  same  theory ;  what  is  more,  he  sings  the 
praises  of  aestheticism  in  one  of  the  finest  languages  ever 
lisped  by  human  tongue.  It  was  he  then  who  furnished  the 
desired  formula.  With  him,  men  thought  only  of  loving 
their  fellows,  of  expelling  evil  passions  by  means  of  pure 
love.    A  sweet  breath  of  spring  fanned  men's  hearts ;  it  was 

'[Italian  scholastic  philosopher  (1453-153S).  His  lectures  attracted 
lords  and  ladies  who  came  to  laugh  at  his  ugly  grimaces  and  ungainly 
antics,  and  at  his  amusing  anecdotes  and  witticisms.  His  works  include 
treatises  on  Beauty,  ou  Love,  De  Principe,  etc.] 


THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  LIFE  153 

philosophical  and  Christian.  Did  Luther  conceive  a  reform 
as  trenchant,  as  vital  as  that  ?  Men  went  back  to  that 
blessed  time  when,  without  employing  the  quiddities  of  the 
Sorbonne  and  of  German  science,  Heaven  spoke  the  simple 
words  to  us :  "  Love  one  another."  They  believed  they  had 
found  the  secret  of  rejuvenescence,  of  re-birth,  and  there 
were  men  so  intoxicated  that  they  went  so  far  as  to  ask 
themselves  whether  Charity  countenanced  trade  or  taxes. 
The  whole  idea  is  summed  up  in  a  single  line :  power 
results  in  barbarism,  civilisation  is  the  product  of  beauty. 

This  formula  suits  both  strong  and  weak,  everyone, 
indeed ;  it  belongs  neither  to  men  nor  to  women,  hails 
neither  from  north  nor  from  south.  The  northern  peoples, 
however,  looking  at  Plato  with  a  purely  philosophical  and 
technical  eye,  failed  to  discover  it;  at  Venice,  the  head- 
quarters of  perfect  editions  of  Plato,  and  at  Paris,  where 
he  was  acclaimed  as  a  prophet,  an  ancestor  of  Christianity, 
where  Florentine  commentaries  on  him  poured  fast  from  the 
press,  and  where  even  a  neglected  commentary  of  Ficino 1 
was  published,  no  one  dreamed  of  seeking  the  recipe  for 
happiness  in  Plato's  philosophy.  So  greatly  was  he  dis- 
trusted that  the  Italian  Vicomercati,  appointed  in  1542  to 
the  professorship  of  philosophy  at  the  College  of  France, 
thought  it  his  duty  by  way  of  returning  thanks  to  immolate 
Socrates  in  his  inaugural  lecture. 

It  was  the  Florentines,  with  their  keen  appreciation  of 
the  good  things  of  life,  who  discovered  the  artistic  side  of 
the  platonic  life.  Women  did  not  count  for  nothing  in  their 
first  deduction,  which  consisted  in  so  linking  the  objects 
of  nature  to  the  human  personality  that  they  should  form 
thenceforth  nothing  but  one  long  procession  of  the  affections. 
At  Florence  this  new  religion  was  observed  with  tender  and 
pleasing  rites. 

On  the  anniversary  of  Plato's  death,  the  master's  bust 
was  crowned  with  laurel  by  invited  guests,  and  then  at  a 
magnificent  banquet  spread  under  the  pleasant  shade,  laucles 
and  canzoni  were  sung  in  honour  of  the  new  spirit.  Almost 
all  were  poets,  and  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  chiefest  among  them. 
They  maintained  a  strict  conformity  with  Christian  ideas. 

1  [The  leading  Italian  humanist  (1433-1499) ;  the  first  professor  in  Cosimo 
de'  Medici's  Florentine  Academy.  lie  translated  Plato  under  Cosimo'i 
auspices]. 


154      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

The  young  Giovanni  de'  Medici,  the  future  Leo  X.,  who  was 
brought  up  among  them,  received  at  the  age  of  seven 
valuable  benefices  with  the  ecclesiastical  tonsure,  and  at 
thirteen  was  given  the  cardinal's  hat.  All  the  leaders  of 
the  movement,  Ficino,  Pico  della  Mirandola,1  Politian,  were 
honoured  with  pontifical  patronage.  Rome  also  was  the 
centre  of  a  similar  movement ;  there  the  academy  of  Pom- 
ponius  Laetus 2  resuscitated  the  grand  days  of  the  republic  ; 
there  men  breathed  as  at  Florence  an  intellectual  air,  light, 
keen  and  eminently  free.  To  the  Facetiae  of  Poggio, 
babbled  out  in  a  room  at  the  Vatican  before  a  select  circle  of 
jovial  monsignors,  corresponded  the  joyous  atrocities  of 
Panormita,  the  boon  companion  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent. 
Everyone  smiled,  everyone  was  happy :  the  very  bezants  or 
golden  pieces,  the  glory  of  the  Medici  escutcheon,  sparkled 
in  the  sun  like  flashes  of  their  wit. 

The  luscious  warmth  of  the  air,  shady  groves,  birds, 
gardens,  statues,  antique  marbles,  thus  played  an  indispen- 
sable part  in  the  platonic  philosophy.  A  banquet  in  honour 
of  the  nine  Muses  serves  us  as  a  map  of  this  new  world  ; 
Marzilio  Ficino,  chosen  by  lot,  chanted  to  the  glory  of 
the  divine  character  of  love  a  superb  song  whose  echoes 
were  long  to  resound. 

Learned  critics  have  sometimes  reproached  Ficino  with 
not  sticking  close  enough  to  the  text  of  the  master,  and 
with  permitting  himself  outbursts  of  virtuosity  tinctured  (so 
they  say)  with  Alexandrinism.  Likely  enough  ;  Ficino  was 
Ficino,  a  man,  independent,  enthusiastic,  no  fanatic ;  he 
steered  for  happiness,  and  whatever  his  admiration  for 
Socrates,  he  did  not  imagine  that  that  great  man  had  neces- 
sarily said  the  last  word  about  everything,  any  more  than 
he  believed  men  eternally  committed  to  Corinthian  capitals. 
His  dream  was  of  a  human  dwelling-house,  noble,  comfort- 
able, habitable  for  us  all,  a  living  shelter  for  life!  While 
pushing  out  glorious  reconnaissances  along  the  roads  to 
heaven,  Plato   had  clearly  left  men's  minds  undecided  on 

1  [A  prodigy  of  learning  who  wasted  his  energies  in  attempting  to 
reconcile  theology  and  philosophy,  and  died  young.  He  knew  twenty-two 
languages], 

2  [An  illegitimate  scion  of  the  house  of  the  Sanseverini  (1425-1477).      He 
'founded  an  academy  for  the  study  of  antiquity,  and  pushed  his  enthusiasm 

so  far  as  to  worship  at  an  altar  erected  to  Romulus,  and  to  roam  the  streets 
garbed  as  Diogenes]. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE  155 

some  points  of  great  importance  to  their  happiness,  and 
it  seemed  wise  to  supply  his  deficiency  by  accepting  with 
closed  eyes  the  explanations  furnished  by  Christianity. 

A  thousand  voices  exclaim,  like  Montaigne  and  Charron, 
that  the  immortality  of  the  soul  cannot  be  proved  by  sheer 
force  of  reasoning.  In  any  case,  how  long  we  have  to  wait ! 
cries  Margaret  of  France.  For  how  many  centuries  have 
some  who  have  fallen  asleep  looked  for  their  awakening ! 

The  Middle  Ages  replied  to  this  question  with  their  own 
terrible  logic.  They  set  us  on  the  edge  of  the  abyss,  and 
there  told  us  that  in  this  world  there  is  no  happiness,  but 
merely  consolations ;  they  linked  us  with  a  supreme  life 
lying  beyond  us,  like  those  hard,  emaciated,  immovable 
statues  incorporate  with  the  stone  of  cathedrals  and  them- 
selves of  the  same  stone.  We  live,  they  told  us,  with 
another  life  than  our  own,  and  love  with  another  love ;  if 
we  lose  one  dear  to  us  we  may  cast  flowers  on  the  vacant 
chair  or  the  needless  cradle,  altars  of  true  life !  Platonism 
prefers  to  take  us  for  what  we  are.  Not  supposing  that 
Providence  sets  man  upon  the  earth  to  struggle  against 
its  own  blessings,  the  platonists  believed  that  in  making 
religion  more  lovable  they  would  make  the  world  less 
pagan,  and  that  in  giving  it  a  philosophical  cast  they  would 
make  it  acceptable  to  unbelievers.  Love  seemed  to  them  to 
be  a  reservoir  of  life,  like  those  noble  springs  which  leap 
down  in  some  shady  nook  of  a  park,  and  flow  on  through  a 
network  of  arteries  more  or  less  conspicuous,  to  give  life 
even  to  the  desert.  Soon  we  shall  no  longer  be  ;  the  hours 
of  our  life  are  sacred :  what  is  the  good  of  ruffling  them  with 
so  many  disquietudes  ?  It  is  a  law  of  our  life  to  yearn  for 
Paradise,  and  there  is  nothing  to  hinder  us  desiring  it  in 
this  present  world. 

The  study  of  Plato,  then,  was  entered  upon  freely,  with 
the  addition  of  anything  that  could  throw  light  upon  the 
doctrines  which  that  great  man  had  founded — the  Bible,  for 
instance,  which  in  the  Roman  world  men  prided  themselves 
on  consulting  directly ;  then  Arabic  and  even  Mussul- 
man philosophy,  with  which  it  was  fashionable  to  claim 
acquaintance.  And  it  was  well  understood  that  a  quest 
pursued  with  so  subtle  a  magnificence,  in  scorn  of  realities 
and  brutal  sensualism,  demanded  a  keen  and  eminently  free 
intelligence,  a  soul  at  leisure,  and  a  great  loathing  of  the 


156      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

flesh ;  otherwise  all  hope  of  falling  under  the  exquisite 
fascinations  of  love  at  once  terrestrial  and  quasi-divine  must 
be  abandoned.  That  explains  why  from  the  outset  this 
philosophy  addressed  itself  to  women  and  to  the  salons. 
Plato  began  to  be  talked  about  as  we  in  our  day  have  heard 
Schopenhauer  and  other  eminent  thinkers  talked  about  by 
persons  who  have  been  at  little  pains  to  read  them.  It  was 
known  that  Plato  harped  on  the  necessity  of  love,  that  his 
smile  was  less  forbidding  than  that  of  S.  Francis  of  Assisi, 
and  that  his  method  was  dialogue,  so  naturally  dialogues 
and  conversations  became  the  methods  of  the  new  platonists. 
From  these  tender  colloquies  the  vulgar  were  excluded  ; 
they  could  make  nothing  of  them  ;  one  could  not  expect 
common  folk  to  apprehend  the  delicate  devices  by  which 
love  is  ethe realised  and  rendered  impalpable ;  from  these 
they  would  only  have  got  a  theme  for  gross  perversions. 
Those  who  had  the  gift  of  knowledge  and  understanding 
ascended  the  Acropolis  like  M.  Renan,  to  chant  their 
canticles  in  a  little  temple  of  their  own,  whose  dimensions 
seemed  to  them  sufficient ;  the  aristocratic  mystery  replaced 
the  old  priestly  mystery ;  so  Cataneo  whispered,  as  it  were 
under  his  breath,  his  book  on  love  addressed  only  to  the 
priests  and  temple  choristers.  Bembo  took  great  care  not 
to  name  the  interlocutors  male  and  female  of  the  Asolani, 
"  so  as  not  to  scandalise  the  populace  " ;  all  were  agreed  in 
religiously  respecting  the  ignorance  of  the  people,  as  to-day 
we  respect  the  ignorance  of  young  girls.  And  for  the  same 
reason,  again,  they  made  too  prodigal  a  use  of  that  strange 
mythological  jargon  which  appears  to  us  in  these  days  so 
entirely  pathetic.  Mythology  has  its  aesthetic  advantages ; 
it  is  an  incarnation  of  the  passions ;  but  that  would  not 
suffice  to  explain  its  sickening  vogue  in  a  society  full  of 
taste,  scepticism  and  levity,  if  it  had  not  presented  the  one 
special  advantage  of  furnishing  a  sort  of  technical  slang  by 
which  the  initiated  recognised  one  another,  and  which  sifted 
out  the  vulgar.  The  princes  of  wit  felt  so  strongly  the  need 
of  such  distinctions  that  before  adopting  this  garb  for  their 
works  they  began  by  muffling  their  own  identity  in  an 
antique  livery :  a  Greek  or  Latin  name  served  them  as  a 
uniform,1  as  when  San  Severino  called  himself  Pomponius 

1  So  that  nothing  should  be  wanting,  a  Diogenes  started  running  about 
the  streets  with  his  lantern  and  his  tattered  cloak  (Paul  Jove). 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE  157 

Laetus,  the  old  aristocratic  pride  yielding  befoie  this  new- 
fangled vanity.  Artistic  glory  donned  the  conventional 
garb ;  no  one  had  the  preposterous  notion  of  lamenting  in 
Raphael  the  exquisite  interpreter  of  Madonnas:  what  was 
deplored  was  the  rival  of  Nature,  the  painter  after  the 
antique.  "  Raphael  has  resuscitated  ancient  Rome,"  exclaims 
Castiglione,  "  he  has  recalled  to  life  and  glory  that  Rome  of 
old,  that  corpse  devoured  by  sword  and  fire  and  time."  That 
was  the  language  of  the  courts,  the  ladies  and  the  princes  of 
the  church  ;  they  had  said  all  when  they  compared  Raphael 
to  the  painters  of  the  Augustan  age  (with  whose  works  we  are 
notvery  well  acquainted),  and  when  they  remembered  that  the 
new  Rome  was  only  a  degenerate  if  not  a  moribund  Rome. 

We  dwell  at  some  length  on  a  state  of  mind  of  such 
peculiarity  and  complexity  as  this,  and  from  which  contra- 
dictory deductions  were  sometimes  drawn,  because  we  find 
in  it  the  only  possible  explanation  of  the  movement  about 
to  arise  in  France.  Platonism  was  an  impression,  an  essence 
of  free-thought,  purely  aesthetic,  Christian  in  principle 
though  sometimes  pagan  in  its  results,  warranted  platonic 
in  label  and  origin  though  somewhat  eclectic  in  composition ; 
a  mystic  incense  in  the  worship  of  Venus,  a  subtle  aroma 
floating  in  the  air  both  of  churches  and  of  theatres ;  breathed 
in  assemblies  in  the  city;  dominating  the  effluences  ot 
Nature  under  the  shadow  of  country  villas ;  open  a  book, 
and  one  caught  a  breath  of  it;  even  painting  and  music 
strove  to  interpret  it  fittingly;  at  the  dinners  and  dances 
and  in  the  thousand  avocations  of  fashionable  life  it  filled 
the  air ;  it  exhaled  as  it  were  an  immortal  savour  of  orange 
blossoms ;  this  was  what  they  called  a  philosophy. 

The  platonist  spirit,  as  Plato  understood  it,  was  often 
exactly  the  opposite.  The  women  and  the  poets  whom  Plato 
condemned,1  the  prelates  who  were  the  heads  of  Christendom, 
were  its  propagators.  They  were  not  greatly  enamoured  of 
Plato's  somewhat  socialistic  theories.  They  went  to  Plato 
as  we  go  to  Nice,  to  obtain  a  little  sunshine  and  escape  the 
incessant  din  of  controversy.  It  is  a  profound  saying  of 
Plato  that  "  those  who  see  the  absolute  and   eternal  and 

1  Erasmus  archly  observes  :  "When  Plato  appeared  uncertain  whether  to 
set  woman  among  rational  animals  or  among  the  brutes,  he  did  not  mean 
that  woman  is  merely  an  animal ;  he  merely  intended  to  point  out  the 
stupidity  of  this  charming  animal." 


158      THE   WOMEN   OF   THE  RENAISSANCE 

immutable  may  be  said  to  know,  and  not  to  have  opinion 
only."  That  is  what  men  desired:  they  would  have  run 
after  illusions  and  even  errors  if  only  they  made  for  happi- 
ness. What  is  the  good  of  pursuing  mutabilities  ?  The 
wise  man  clings  to  that  which  tranquillises.  Others  may 
wear  themselves  out  with  anxiety  and  restlessness,  but  he 
enjoys  his  life  of  placid  ease ;  in  the  end  they  die  and  he 
dies,  and  there  is  nothing  to  choose  between  them. 

Before  it  could  be  turned  to  profitable  account,  platonism 
thus  underwent  a  long  and  difficult  preparation  to  bring  it 
into  line  with  the  tastes  of  the  day.  The  work  was  accom- 
plished in  Italy,  whence  the  product  was  sent  to  us  in  a 
finished  state.  Good  Plato,  with  his  rather  old-fashioned 
eyes,  had  seen  beauty  only  in  man ;  from  one  man  he  passed 
to  the  species,  then  from  the  species  to  the  soul,  that  is,  to 
intellectual  beauty,  which  to  him  appeared  the  only  true 
beauty.  It  was  necessary  to  bring  this  doctrine  into  line 
with  the  practical  doctrine  of  the  special  attraction  exercised 
on  man  by  the  beauty  of  woman.  Now  Plato,  besides  giving 
man  the  beauty  and  woman  the  love,  attributed  to  love  the 
secondary  character  of  a  sensual  and  egoistic  phenomenon 
in  which  no  spiritual  element  was  discoverable  save 
perhaps  the  instinct  of  immortality.  Of  this  very  instinct, 
however,  Plato  had  an  imperfect  appreciation,  for  the 
immortality  we  might  hope  to  gain  by  replacing  our  decayed 
bodies  with  the  fresh  young  lives  of  our  offspring,  if  it 
serves  the  interests  of  the  human  race,  does  not  much  serve 
those  of  the  individual ;  at  any  rate,  Plato  considered  it  at 
once  vulgar — everyone  or  nearly  everyone  being  able  to  aspire 
to  it — and  incomplete,  for  transmission  and  conservation  of 
life  are  not  the  same  thing,  and  only  a  person  very  barren 
of  intellectual  resources  could  content  himself  with  so  modest 
a  glimmer  of  immortality.  A  man  only  survives  through 
his  thoughts.  The  last  shreds  of  the  thoughts  of  Homer  or 
Hesiod  will  live  long,  and  will  long  cause  temples  to  spring 
from  the  earth ;  what  child  of  flesh  and  blood  is  likely  to 
bear  his  father's  glory  thus  on  through  the  ages  ? 

The  earliest  interpreters  of  Plato,  Ficinoand  Politian,  had 
departed  with  no  little  timidity  from  his  teaching ;  the  one 
eclectic  and  cautious,  the  other  adventurous,  they  went 
nevertheless  not  much  beyond  formulating  a  general 
doctrine  of  love.     Ficino  exalted  love  as  the  supreme  wis- 


THE   PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE  159 

dom,  the  creator  and  preserver  par  excellence ;  the  link 
binding  earthly  things  together,  and  the  earth  itself  with 
heaven ;  the  inspirer  of  great  deeds  and  noble  thoughts,  a 
necessary  element  of  life.  He  preached  the  love  of  love 
itself:  "The  man  who  loves,  loves  love  above  all;  love  is 
sufficient  unto  itself  and  finds  its  goal  within  itself;  it  is 
true  and  good  and  pure."  But  in  order  to  bring  himself 
into  conformity  with  the  new  spirit,  Ficino  admitted  as 
derived  from  Plato  (though  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  not 
to  be  found  in  his  works) 1  a  capital  distinction  upon  which 
the  platonism  of  the  Renaissance  was  entirely  to  rest :  there 
are  two  loves,  different  in  degree,  the  one  heaven-born  and 
fixing  its  gaze  upon  heaven,  the  other  born  of  Jupiter  and 
seeking  only  to  produce  a  form  like  him. 

Francesco  Cataneo  insisted  strongly  on  this  invaluable 
distinction.  Analysing  man,  he  found  in  him  a  mind,  the 
source  of  true  spiritual  love,  and  a  sort  of  intermediate 
force  hard  to  define,  a  "  soul  or  life "  whence  sensual  or, 
if  the  term  be  preferred,  profane  love  has  its  being.  Cataneo 
moreover  dealt  hardly  with  profane  love,  representing  it  as 
bare-footed  to  indicate  its  foolishness,  lean  for  lack  of 
nourishment,  and  winged,  for  it  is  evanescent,  dependent  on 
physical  beauty,  on  "  worthless  dross  " ;  and  it  was  because 
the  world  knew  no  other  love  that  the  preaching  of  a 
Reformation  became  necessary.  As  to  women,  Cataneo  never 
ceased  to  consider  them  as  stones  of  stumbling;  inheriting  all 
the  old  prejudices  of  the  schoolmen,  he  saw  in  women  nothing 
but  imperfect  men  created  for  the  sole  end  of  perpetuating 
the  race,  and  man  ever  seemed  to  him  the  perfect  type. 

But  with  what  warmth,  with  what  passion  Bembo,  the 
Roman  prelate  and  future  cardinal,  expounds  the  modern 
principles  before  the  charming  coterie  of  Urbino,  and,  fling- 
ing away  the  swaddling  bands  of  early  days,  confesses  him- 
self frankly  a  feminist ! 2 

1  To  this  day  this  theory  of  two  loves  is  commonly  attributed  to  Plato, 
even  in  philosophical  treatises. 

2  His  ardent  oration  has  been  reported  in  the  Courtier  of  Castiglione, 
which  became  the  breviary  of  the  new  society ;  we  know  that  Castiglione 
faithfully  reproduced  his  words,  and,  for  greater  accuracy,  first  submitted 
the  manuscript  to  Bembo.  [It  may  be  as  well  to  state  that  the  passage 
quoted  here  is  not  a  continuous  quotation,  but  an  admirable  condensation 
of  several  pages  of  Castiglione.  See  pp.  343-363  of  Hoby's  translation  in 
Mr.  Henley's  "  Tudor  Translations."] 


160      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

"  The  terrestrial  beauty  that  excites  love,"  he  says,  "  is  an 
inflowing  (influsso)  of  divine  beauty  irradiating  all  creation. 
It  rests  like  a  beam  of  light  on  regular,  graceful  and  har- 
monious features ;  it  beautifies  this  countenance,  shining  in 
it,  attracting  all  eyes  to  it,  and  through  them  penetrating, 
stirring,  delighting  the  soul  and  bringing  desire  to  birth 
therein.  Love  is  thus  really  born  of  a  ray  of  divine  beauty 
caught  through  the  medium  of  a  woman's  face.  Unhappily 
the  senses  interpose :  a  man  sees  in  the  body  itself  the 
source  of  beauty  and  longs  to  enjoy  it.  How  deceived  he 
is !  It  is  not  beauty  that  is  thus  enjoyed ;  an  appetite 
is  appeased,  and  soon  comes  satiety,  weariness  and  often 
aversion.  These  deceptions  and  regrets  abundantly  prove 
what  an  error  has  been  made,  for  a  man  must  needs  have 
found  joy  and  restfulness  if  he  had  sought  the  true  end, 
whereas  on  the  contrary  love  gives  rise  to  a  thousand  ills — 
griefs  and  torments,  vexation  and  sullen  fits,  despondency, 
catastrophes  even ;  the  heart  never  attains  the  limit  of  its 
desires,  or  perhaps  the  man  is  so  sunk  in  sensual  love, 
declines  so  far  towards  the  level  of  the  beasts,  as  to  become 
incapable  of  comprehending  the  supreme  radiance.  All 
these  experiences  are  dearly  purchased.  Knowledge  how  to 
love  comes  only  in  ripe  manhood :  only  the  old  indeed  really 
have  it,  and  their  skill  lies  in  eluding  the  impulse  of 
the  senses,  in  fleeing  from  all  that  is  vulgar.  If  he  can 
do  no  otherwise,  a  man  must  set  his  face  steadfastly  towards 
love  divine,  taking  reason  for  his  guide." 

True  love,  then,  is  a  disinterested  love  inspired  in  man 
by  woman.  And  therefore  Bembo,  who  was  the  more 
knowing  in  these  things  because  he  had  loved  deeply,  was 
still  young,  and  had  not  yet  heard  his  own  clear  call  towards 
love  divine,  lifts  up  his  voice  in  a  passionate  prayer :  "  0 
love,  most  good,  most  beautiful,  most  wise,  thou  that  comest 
from  divine  goodness  and  wisdom,  and  returnest  thither 
again,  O  thou  cord  binding  us  poor  terrestrial  and  mortal  folk 
one  to  another,  thou  bendest  the  higher  virtues  to  dominate 
the  lower!  Thou  dost  unite  the  elements,  thou  dost  per- 
petuate the  life  that  perisheth,  thou  makest  imperfection 
perfect,  thou  bringest  discords  into  harmony,  thou  turnest 
foes  into  friends,  thou  givest  fruit  to  the  earth,  peace  to  the 
waves,  and  to  heaven  its  light  of  life !  0  father  of  true 
pleasures,  of  grace  and  peace,  of  lowliness  and  goodwill, 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE  161 

O  enemy  of  wildness  and  pride  and  slothfulness,  thou  art 
the  alpha  and  omega  of  all  good ! 

"  Thou  dost  reveal  thyself  in  terrestrial  beauty !  Hear 
our  prayers,  lighten  our  darkness,  guide  us  through  the 
mazes  of  this  world,  rectify  the  falseness  of  our  senses. 
Humbly  we  beg  of  thee  balmy  breath  from  the  spiritual 
world,  a  touch  of  celestial  harmony,  an  inexhaustible  fount 
of  true  contentment!  Purge  our  eyes  of  ignorance,  and 
make  us  to  see  in  its  perfection  the  beauty  of  on  high ! 
Love  is  communion  with  the  divine  beauty,  the  banquet 
of  the  angels,  immortal  ambrosia ! " 

It  is  now  time  to  answer  an  objection  which  the  reader 
has  no  doubt  formulated  long  ago,  and  which  Bembo  very 
clearly  perceived. 

Assuredly  it  is  woman's  mission  among  us  to  represent 
beauty,  and  consequently  love,  and  love  is  the  inspiration 
of  noble  thoughts  and  great  actions.  But  these  are  such 
old  truths  that  to  find  them  hardly  needed  so  much  intel- 
lectual and  poetic  effort,  or  the  harking  back  to  Plato. 

The  learned  book  On  the  Nature  of  Love,  in  which 
Equicola  essays  simply  an  enumeration  of  the  different 
species  of  love  known  since  the  thirteenth  century,  resembles 
a  collection  of  butterflies.  Every  colour  is  there,  brilliant 
or  dull ;  the  sentimental  view  is  there  represented  in  almost 
infinite  shades,  from  the  magnificent  love  of  Boucicaut,  who 
served  all  women  for  the  love  of  one,  the  Holy  Virgin,  to 
the  art  of  loving  for  love's  sake,  always  fashionable  in  the 
salons,  aDd  sedulously  cultivated  as  an  excellent  prescrip- 
tion for  innocuous  emotions  and  a  cheap  renown.  Men  well 
knew  how  to  love,  to  be  sure ! 

But  love  is  rarely  reciprocal ;  as  someone  has  said,  one 
loves  and  the  other  takes  the  kisses.  So  far,  it  was  the 
woman  who  was  recognised  as  the  beauty,  and  consequently 
as  the  loved  one,  and  who  took  the  kisses. 

The  novelty  of  Plato's  system  was  to  transfer  the  beauty 
to  men,  which  ran  counter  to  all  accepted  notions.  To 
Bembo  this  theory  seemed  intolerable.  That  women  are 
capable  of  loving  he  firmly  believed  and  rejoiced  to  believe. 
But  to  give  up  loving  women  appeared  to  him  too  cruel. 
He  would  much  rather  give  platonism  the  go-by  and 
acknowledge  the  reciprocity  cf  beauty  and  love.  In  short, 
he  fell  back  on  Petiarchism. 


162      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Michelangelo  proclaimed  the  true  modern  platonism  with 
extraordinary  ardour  in  professing  a  love  at  once  virile  and 

f)ure.  "I  have  often  heard  him  reason  and  discourse  on 
ove,"  writes  Condivi,  "  and  I  learnt  from  persons  present 
that  he  spoke  of  it  no  otherwise  than  may  be  read  in  Plato. 
I  do  not  know  what  Plato  says,  but  I  know  well,  having 
long  had  intimate  intercourse  with  Michelangelo,  that  I 
never  heard  issue  from  his  mouth  aught  but  the  most  be- 
coming words,  apt  to  repress  the  lawless  and  unbridled 
desires  that  might  spring  up  in  the  hearts  of  young 
men." 

Michelangelo  said  more  than  once  that  God  is  seen  in 
terrestrial  beauty;  love  is  only  a  hymn  to  the  Creator;  "for 
if  every  one  of  our  affections  is  displeasing  to  heaven,  to 
what  end  would  God  have  created  the  world  ? "  A  great 
love  makes  only  for  the  highest  morality,  it  provides  man 
with  wings  for  a  sublime  flight :  * 

Thy  wondrous  beauty,  image  of  the  grace 

That  fills  all  heaven  with  glory,  to  us  shown 

By  the  Eternal  Artist's  hand  alone, 
When  time  and  age  have  worn  it  from  thy  face, 
Nor  age  nor  time  can  from  my  heart  displace, 

But  ever  deeplier  graven  shall  it  be  ; 

For  in  my  thought  that  beauty  I  shall  see 
Which  Time's  cold  finger  never  can  erase. 

If  the  soul  were  not  created  in  the  image  of  God  it  would 
seek  after  nothing  but  external  beauty ;  but  it  does  in  truth 
penetrate  beyond  this  deceptive  outer  form,  to  fix  itself  on 
the  essential,  to  rise  until  it  attains  the  ideal  or  universal 
form :  Transcende  nella  forma  universale.2  Thus  beauty 
elevates  and  quickens  us  into  the  world  of  spirits  and  the 
elect.  Many  of  Michelangelo's  verses  convey  the  same 
idea  under  different  forms : 

The  fount  that  feeds  my  love  is  not  my  heart, 
For  though  I  love  thee,  yet  my  love  withal 
Is  not  to  heart  of  flesh  and  blood  in  thrall, 

But  ever  yearneth  toward  a  goal  apart, 

Where  no  base  mortal  passion  dare  intrude, 
Nor  any  guilty  thought  nor  impulse  rude. 

1  Sonnet  viii.  8  Sonnet  lii. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE  163 

A  love  without  heart !     Here  indeed  is  the  formula  of  the 
new  platonism ! x 

Unfortunately,  Michelangelo  is  a  striking  and  titanic 
exception.  He  can  scarcely  be  considered  the  head  of  a 
school :  and  platonism  became  for  the  most  part  nothing 
more  than  a  fashionable  science,  the  antidote  to  marriage ; 
an  intellectual  union  between  a  hard-headed,  lusty-armed 
man  and  a  woman  all  tenderness  and  wisdom ;  the  formula 
of  the  government  of  man  by  woman.  Its  origin  and  its 
end  remained  equally  philosophic ;  in  short,  it  was  a  senti- 
mental sociology.  If  it  had  been  a  question  of  philosophy, 
no  one  could  better  have  represented  Plato  than  Savonarola.2 

1  Distinguished  as   she  necessarily  was,   the  lady   who  inspired  such 
accents  had  herself  nothing  so  tragic  or  so  sublime.     She  wrote : 
Amor,  tu  sai,  che  mai  non  torsi  il  piede 
Dal  career  tuo  soave,  ne  disciolsi 
Dal  dolce  giogo  il  collo,  ne  ti  tolsi 
Quanto  dal  primo  dl  Palma  ti  diede. 

Tempo  non  cangi6  mai  l'antica  fede  ; 
II  nodo  e  stretto  anchor,  com'io  l'avvolsi ; 
Ne  per  il  frutto  amar,  ch'ognihor  ne  colsi, 
L'alta  cagion  men  cara  al  cor  mi  riede. 

Visto  hai  quanto  in  un  petto  fido,  ardente 
Pu6  oprar  quel  caro  tuo  piu  acuto  dardo, 
Contro  del  cui  poter  Morte  non  valse, 

Fa  homai  da  te,  che'l  nodo  si  rallente, 
Che  a  me  di  liberta  gia  mai  nol  calse, 
Anzi  di  ricovrarla  hor  mi  par  tardo. 

[Thou  knowest,  Love,  I  never  sought  to  flee 
From  thy  sweet  prison,  nor  impatient  threw 
Thy  dear  yoke  from  my  neck  ;  never  withdrew 
What,  that  first  day,  my  soul  bestowed  on  thee. 

Time  hath  not  changed  love's  ancient  surety ; 

The  knot  is  still  as  firm  ;  and  though  there  grew 

Moment  by  moment  fruit  bitter  as  rue, 
Yet  the  fair  tree  remains  as  dear  to  me. 

And  thou  hast  seen  how  that  keen  shaft  of  thine, 
'Gainst  which  the  might  of  Death  himself  is  vain, 
Smote  on  one  ardent,  faithful  breast  full  sore. 

Now  loose  the  cords  that  fast  my  soul  entwine, 
For  thcuth  of  freedom  ne'er  I  reck'd  before, 
Yet  now  I  yearn  my  freedom  to  regain.] 

4 "Ye  women  who  glory  in  your  ornaments,  your  hair,  your  hands,  I 
tell  you  you  are  all  ugly.  Would  you  see  the  true  beauty?  Look  at  the 
pious  man  or  woman  in  whom  spirit  dominates  matter  :  watch  him,   say, 


]64      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

But  Savonarola  did  not  represent  the  intellect  of  society ; 
behind  him  men  thought  they  caught  a  whiff  of  all  the 
wretched  tatterdemalion"  in  revolt  at  Rome  against  the 
Academy  of  Laetus,  at  Florence  against  the  Medici.  On 
the  other  hand,  Tullia  d'Aragona,  a  courtesan,  exercised  a 
platonic  influence  through  her  excellent  book  On  the 
Infinity  of  Perfect  Love.  Others  unceremoniously  dismissed 
Socrates  and  Plato  as  liars  and  knaves,  and  yet  passed  for 
good  platonists  since  they  extolled  the  religion  of  beauty, 
and  woman  as  essentially  its  priestess ;  and  since  they  saw 
in  love  the  chain  binding  earth  to  heaven,  and  the  bulwark 
against  socialism.  In  short,  platonism  and  feminism  are 
one  and  the  same.  It  is  quite  possible  to  believe  implicitly 
in  the  dogma  of  love  without  splitting  love  in  two  and 
pinning  ourselves  on  an  impossible  dilemma — matter  without 
spirit  or  spirit  without  matter.  This  latitude  of  apprecia- 
tion is  not  to  be  called  materialism,  but  merely  the  need  of  a 
material  perception  in  order  to  arrive  at  the  idea  of  beauty. 
This  explains  why  the  platonist  spirit  was  so  coldly 
received  in  France.  Platonism  was  the  art  of  rendering 
virtue  pleasant  and  contagious ;  but  in  France  it  was  the 
conviction  that  virtue  needed  to  defend  itself  like  the  fretful 
porpentine.1 

when  he  prays,  when  a  ray  of  the  divine  beauty  glows  upon  him,  when  his 
prayer  is  ended  ;  you  will  see  the  beauty  of  God  shining  in  his  face,  you 
will  behold  it  as  it  were  the  face  of  an  angel."    (2Sth  Sermon  on  Ezekiel). 

1  "Monsieur,  si  vous  estiez  aseure  de  la  prudence  et  discretion  que  vous 
dictes  estre  en  moy,  vous  ne  prendriez  peine  de  m'escripre  courte  ne  longue 
lettre,  car  ou  deux  telles  vertuz  consistent,  une  n'a  lieu :  qui  servira  de 
briefve  response  a  tout  ce  que  m'escripvez.  De  mon  vouloir,  ll  est  tel,  sans 
jamais  changer  propos,  que  je  seray  telle  que  je  doibz  estre,  et  que  ne 
m'estimez  estre  si  bonne  par  vostre  lettre ;  ouy  bien  autant  qu'il  me  sera 
possible,  et  quelque  jeune  d'aage  que  je  soye,  si  cognois  je  bien  que  en 
suyvant  ces  deux  devant  dictes  vertuz,  Ton  ne  se  peult  desvoyer.  Quant  a 
I'audience  que  me  demandez,  je  ne  puis,  et  ne  veulx ;  et,  sans  plus  m'escripre, 
a  Dieu  prenez  en  gr6  et  ne  vous  desplaise."     (La  Fleur  de  toutes  joyeusetez). 

[Here  is  the  letter  of  a  woman  of  the  old  style :  "  Sir,  if  you  were 
assured  of  the  prudence  and  discretion  you  say  are  in  me,  you  would  not 
waste  your  time  writing  letters,  whether  long  or  short,  for  where  two  such 
virtues  are  conjoined,  a  letter  is  but  vain :  which  will  serve  as  a  brief 
response  to  all  you  write  to  me.  My  will  is  such  that  I  am  firmly  resolved 
to  be  good,  as  I  ought  to  be,  though  from  your  letter  you  do  not  think  I 
am  ;  ay,  so  far  as  lies  in  my  power  :  and  though  I  may  be  young  in  years, 
yet  know  I  well  that  in  seeking  after  the  two  aforesaid  virtues  one  cannot 
go  astray.  As  to  the  interview  you  ask  of  me,  I  cannot  and  I  will  not ; 
and,  without  writing  further,  I  pray  God  you  may  take  it  in  good  part  and 
not  be  huffed."] 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE  165 

No  one  troubled  about  spiritualising  love;  the  inferior 
clergy,  parish  parsons,  applying  in  every  matter  a  rough- 
and-ready  system  of  ethics,  drew  no  distinction  between 
sentiment  and  sensation,  but  proscribed  everything.  They 
summed  up  the  religious  life  in  a  multitude  of  observances 
all  having  for  result  the  subjection  of  women — a  contracted 
morality  which  gave  rise  to  startling  inconsequences.  It 
was  pretended  that  the  mere  sight  of  a  lady  fidgeting  about 
on  her  balcony  was  enough  to  tell  you  she  was  a  French- 
woman.1 

Anne  of  France  forbade  lovemaking  between  fiance's,  the 
best,  most  innocent,  most  legitimate  in  the  world,  just  as 
strictly  as  the  grossest  intrigue ;  but  Louise  of  Savoy  was  as 
little  shocked  at  the  one  as  the  other. 

There  was  bitter  hostility  between  the  two  camps. 

Madame  de  Taillebourg  remorselessly  turned  her  back  on 
her  nieces,  Louise  of  Savoy  and  Margaret  of  France,  as  being 
tainted  with  the  new  spirit.  Queen  Anne  personally  led  the 
crusade  in  favour  of  the  old  ideas;  Antony  du  Four,  her 
almoner,  published  semi-officially  a  collection  of  the  lives  of 
ninety-one  pious  women,  as  a  counterblast  to  the  Italian 
collections;  and  he  implored  ladies  not  to  succumb  to  the 
new  contagion,  not  to  run  out  of  their  salutary  groove,  for, 
he  said,  France  had  never  produced  "  more  wise  and  good 
women  than  at  present,"  beginning  with  Queen  Anne,  "a 
bottomless  well  of  virtue."  "  Under  the  mask  of  science  and 
philosophy"  all  these  "prating  and  scribbling  fellows"  who 
wished  to  give  women  a  great  part  to  play  were  only  seek- 
ing, declared  Du  Four,  to  sap  their  modesty  and  wreck  their 
good  name. 

In  these  criticisms  there  was  certainly  a  modicum  of 
truth.  But  they  went  too  far  in  anathemising  the  good  and 
the  evil  without  distinction. 

1  La  Francoise  est  entiere  et  sans  rompeure : 
Plaisir  la  meine  :  au  proffit  ne  regarde. 
Conclusion  :  qui  en  parle  ou  brocarde, 
Francoises  sont  chef-d'oeuvre  de  nature... 
Pour  le  desduict  (k  plaisir). 

— Marot,  Rondeau  13. 

[Our  ladies  flawless  are  and  all  complete  : 
"Tis  pleasure  leads  them  ;  they  look  not  for  gain : 
Conclusion  :  meu  will  talk  aud  scoff  in  vain, 
For  pleasure  they  are  Nature's  master-feat] 


166      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

France,  like  Italy,  had  its  "  primitive  "  women — philoso- 
phers, apostles  of  the  philosophy  of  love ;  but  their  numbers 
and  above  all  their  influence,  owing  to  the  opposition  we 
have  just  indicated,  were  very  small.  They  were  women  of 
admirable  endowments  and  sterling  qualities,highly  educated, 
afire  with  energy  of  that  somewhat  melancholy  cast  neces- 
sarily developed  by  contact  with  a  stern  world.  It  is  natural 
to  cite,  by  way  of  example,  that  sometime  lady  of  JBeaujeu, 
Anne  of  France,  a  figure  after  Michelangelo's  own  heart, 
grand  and  severe  as  a  cathedral. 

We  picture  her  always  in  her  capacity  as  regent — the 
politician,  soldier,  and  diplomate  upholding  the  fortunes  of 
France,  and  displaying  in  the  greatest  difficulties  her  in- 
comparable genius.  And  yet  her  heart  was  not  in  this  work ; 
she  filled  her  part  as  a  family  duty,  she  devoted  herself  to  it 
entirely,  but  it  was  the  cross  of  her  life.  As  soon  as  she 
could  she  forsook  her  toilsome  life  of  affairs,  for  no  other 
reason  than  to  return  to  the  life  of  the  affections.  She  shirked 
neither  toil  nor  responsibilities,  and  understood  perhaps  more 
fully  than  anyone  else  the  profound  and  mysterious  joy 
experienced  by  lofty  souls  in  impressing  their  own  individu- 
ality widely  upon  others.  But  she  was  only  too  conscious 
that  in  plying  a  man's  trade  she  was  acting  like  a  widow  or 
an  elder  sister,  not  like  a  free  woman  or  a  princess,  and  that 
neither  politics  nor  military  service  was  directly  conducive  to 
happiness.  She  knew  that  in  crushing  rebels  she  would  not 
make  them  happy,  and  that  she  herself  would  be  the  first 
victim  of  her  devotion. 

She  was  right.  We  know  how,  in  the  swing  of  the 
political  pendulum,  she  fell  beneath  the  strokes  of  Louise  of 
Savoy,1  who  owed  everything   to  her.     Wounded   in  her 

1  Cornelius  Agrippa  furnishes  a  curious  piece  of  evidence  on  this  point. 
Disgraced  by  Louise  of  Savoy,  he  asked   himself  what  had  caused  the 

Erincess's  hatred.  While  pondering  the  matter  he  mechanically  opened  his 
ible  and  lit  upon  the  passage  where  Ahab  says  in  regard  to  the  prophet 
Micaiah,  "I  hate  him,  because  he  doth  not  prophesy  good  concerning  me." 
**  That's  my  very  own  case,"  cries  Agrippa,  and  remembers  that  one  day  he 
had  foretold  a  victory  for  M.  de  Bourbon.  What  victory  ? — he  did  not  say, 
and  for  good  reasons  :  but  that  was  enough.  So  he  takes  his  pen,  and 
writes  a  long  address  to  prove  that  he  is  not,  has  not  been,  and  will  not  be 
of  the  Bourbon  party,  in  spite  of  the  overtures  made  to  him.  He  got  noth- 
ing by  his  prose  ;  some  time  afterwards  Bourbon  was  killed  at  Rome,  and, 
adds  Agrippa,  "Jezebel  possesses  his-vineyard.  The  angel  of  the  Lord  has 
warned  me  and  saved  me  from  the  evil  woman.  Nothing  remains  but  to 
fling  Jezebel  headlong  and  give  her  carcase  to  the  dogs." 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE  167 

liveliest  interests,  in  her  dearest  affections,  in  the  sentiment 
of  dignity  she  held  so  high,  she  died  proudly,  as  Caesar  died, 
with  her  mantle  wrapped  about  her : 

Elle  attendoit  venir  l'heure  opportune 
Que  la  justice  ou  Dieu  y  mist  la  main,1 

as  a  servant  of  Francis  I.  wrote. 

Her  coldness  then  was  assumed,  but  she  kept  up  the 
appearance  of  Stoicism  so  well  that  many  a  man,  even 
among  her  friends  and  admirers,  really  believed  in  this 
lamentable  insensibility.  Again,  Anne  of  France  had  no 
love  for  the  vanities,  the  whole  trivial  round  of  court 
life ;  "  she  dismissed  Cypris  to  Paphos,"  for  which  some 
persons  found  it  difficult  to  forgive  her,  particularly  Octovien 
de  Saint-Gelais,  who  nevertheless  has  extolled  her  sweetness, 
calling  her  "a  second  Semiramis,  a  new  Queen  of  the 
Amazons,  come  to  life  again  to  establish  peace."  Her 
vigorous  intellect,  her  frank  and  remorselessly  sincere 
disposition,  her  way  of  treating  everything  on  broad 
and  general  lines,  puzzled  the  rude  yet  feeble  folk 
around  her.  The  only  thing  she  lacked,  as  one  of  her 
friends  said,  was  love : 

S'elle  avoit  un  peu  de  cella, 
Ce  seroit  la  plus  accomplye 
A  qui  Dieu  donna  oncques  vie." 

She  had  a  large,  indeed  an  immeasurable  quantity  of  "that," 
but  she  took  it  seriously;  it  might  well  be  said  that  she 
did  not  set  "  her  whole  imagination  spinning  round  problems 
of  sentiment."  She  had  no  idea  of  bringing  imagination 
into  her  affections,  but  distrusted  it;  it  was  through  the 
soul  and  the  real  needs  of  the  soul  that  she  caught  glimpses 
of  the  ideal  life  of  which  we  have  just  spoken.  But  having 
faith  in,  rather  than  enthusiasm  for,  these  ideas,  and  con- 
sidering as  she  did  that  the  heart's  activities  were  perfectly 
reasonable,  beneficent  and  necessary,  she  saw  no  reason 
for  ruffling,  gilding  or  engarlanding  them.  She  was 
somewhat   lacking   in   suppleness,    self-sacrificing,    of  un- 

1  Awaiting  thus  the  seasonable  hour 
For  justice  or  for  God  to  interpose  with  power. 

2L'aisne'e  Fille  de  fortune.  ["If  she  had  a  little  of  that,  she  would  be 
the  most  accomplished  lady  God  ever  gave  life  to."] 


168     THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

bounded  good-heartedness,  staid  in  demeanour,  firm  in 
resolution,  but  also  warm,  passionate,  loving  to  devote  her- 
self to  others  and  not  doing  so  by  halves.  In  her  heart  of 
hearts  she  adored  all  that  a  good  woman  adores — her  son,  a 
poor  child  whose  death  almost  killed  her,  her  daughter,  her 
son-in-law,  whom  she  loved  as  a  son  ;  she  took  an  ardent 
delight  in  friendship,  and  above  all  in  that  special,  delicate, 
tender,  profound  affection  which  is  only  established  between 
a  man  and  a  woman ;  to  win  love  was  her  sole  ambition.1 
She  buried  deep  down  in  her  heart  an  innocent  romance 
which  no  historian  has  related  and  which  even  her 
intimates  appear  never  to  have  suspected — a  reserve  which 
paints  her  to  the  life !  Till  the  day  of  her  death  she 
wore  a  ring  on  her  finger.  We  have  discovered  her  secret : 
the  ring  was  the  pledge  of  her  betrothal  to  a  young  duke 
of  Calabria  from  whom  her  father  had  separated  her,  who 
had  soon  afterwards  died,  but  whom  she  was  never  able  to 
forget. 

This  certainly  was  one  of  the  women  most  likely  to  under- 
stand and  to  promulgate  throughout  France  the  programme 
of  the  quest  for  happiness.  She  did  not  believe  with  Du 
Four  that  a  sort  of  passive  naivete'  was  the  ultimate  expres- 
sion of  virtue ;  she  sought  another  goal,  anxious,  doubtless, 
that  love  should  give  a  powerful  stimulus  to  woman's 
activities,  as  it  had  done  for  the  women  of  Spain,  whose 
imagination  was  filled  with  Zenobia,  Queen  of  Palmyra. 
Her  friend  Champier  has  rounded  off  her  thought  by  recall- 
ing Plato's  saying  that  "  the  lover  is  dead  to  himself  and 
lives  in  another."  Deeply  read  in  the  church  fathers  and 
the  philosophers,  she  hailed  with  joy  the  principle  of 
platonic  love,  "  the  love  of  which  the  philosopher  speaks, 
that  is,  a  love  founded  on  purity." 

For  all  her  lofty  station,  however,  Anne  of  France  never 
found  herself  able  to  popularise  her  ideas  in  a  country 
where  an  idea  only  succeeds  when  it  becomes  a  fashion ;  the 
new  philosophy  had  perforce  to  come  like  a  flood,  sweeping 
good  and  evil  along  with  it,  and  imposing  itself  by  the 
authority  of  the  court.  That  is  what  happened  around 
Francis  I. ;  as  soon  as  it  became  a  mark  of  good  taste  to 

1  La  Vauguyon  describes  with  emotion  the  Borrow  of  her  servants  and 
vassals :  "What  will  become  of  u»  now?  .  .  .  Death  has  seized  onr 
mother." 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE  169 

talk  philosophy  and  occult  sciences,1  Hellenism,2  and  above 
all  Italianism,  and  to  adopt  ultramontane  fashions  wholesale, 
people  chattered  about  Plato.  The  king  dearly  loved  the 
ladies,  and  could  not  despise  anything  that  glorified  the 
sex.  He  set  some  store  by  "Noble-Heart,"  "Feminine 
Noblesse,"3  and  other  subtle  evocations  of  the  old  chivalry ; 
he  hoped  that  platonism  might  succeed  in  renewing  them, 
and  requested  Castiglione,  the   oracle  of  the  new  school, 

1  Bonnet  entendoit  la  magie 
Aussi  bien  que  l'astrologie : 
Bonnet  le  futur  pr^disoit, 
Et  de  tout  presages  faisoit... 
Bonnet  sceut  la  langue  hebraique 
Aussi  bien  que  la  caldaique ; 
Mais  en  latin  le  bon  abbe 
N'y  entendoit  ny  A  ny  B. 
Bonnet  avoit  mis  en  usage 
Un  barragouin  de  langage 
Entremesle  d'italien, 
De  francois  et...  savoysien. 
Bonnet  fut  de  l'Academie, 
De  ceux  qui  souflent  l'alchumie. 

— Du  Bellay,  Epitaphe  de  Vabhi  Bonnet. 

[Bonnet  knew  astrology 
As  well  as  demonology. 
Bonnet  the  future  could  foretell 
And  cast  your  horoscope  as  well. 
Bonnet  knew  the  Hebrew  tongue, 
And  in  Chaldee  spake  and  sung, 
But,  good  soul,  in  Latin  he 
Could  not  say  his  ABC. 
Bonnet  used  with  good  intention 
A  jargon  of  his  own  invention — 
Words  from  France  he  would  employ, 
From  Italy  and  from — Savoy. 
And  in  academic  state 
Of  alchemy  Bonnet  would  prate.] 

*  Montaigne,  bk.  iii.  cap.  x. 

8  A  naive  French  poet,  with  the  words  '  grace '  and  '  hope '  ever  on  his 
lips,  somewhat  Bcornfully  depicts  the  French  court  guarded  military  fashion 
by  two  Italians,  Pasquil  and  Aretino,  whom  he  styles  Bohemians  of 
sinister  aspect.  '  Diligence '  and  '  Bon  Vouloir,'  old  deities  of  the  past, 
had  much  difficulty  in  approaching.  "Noble  Cceur,"  says  a  poet,  "found 
his  '  temporal  joy '  in  chatting  with  and  serving  ladies  ;  Nature  encourages 
Noblesse-Feminine  to  rule  men,  who  include  good  and  bad.  la  a  delightful 
garden  the  tree  of  Humanity  flourishes;  this  splits  into  two  equal  branches, 
that  is,  between  the  two  sexes  '  one  in  being,  one  in  substance,  one  in 
dignity,'  and  differentiated  only  by  accident.  Vilain-Cceur  and  Malebouche 
have  long  been  devising  mischief  against  Noblesse-Feminine ;  at  the 
instigation  of  Nature,  Noble-Cceur  at  length  arms  himself  in  her  defence." 


170     THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

to  furnish  a  pendant  to  his  Courtier,  to  be  called 
"  The  Courtesan."  Castiglione  declined  this  flattering 
invitation. 

When  Francis  I.  ascended  the  throne  it  was  as  a  member 
of  a  sort  of  triumvirate,  the  other  two  being  ladies — "a 
single  heart  in  three  bodies." 

Louise  of  Savoy,  aged  and  old-fashioned,  reserved  politics 
as  her  sphere,  as  far  as  possible;  Francis  retained  the 
pageantry,  the  money,  the  passages  at  arms,  the  material 
satisfactions  of  power;  Margaret  of  France,  in  the  Italian 
style,  assumed  the  direction  of  men's  minds  and  souls ;  she 
was  far  more  queen  of  intellectual  France  than  Duchess  of 
Alencon  or  Queen  of  Navarre. 

She  so  completely  identified  herself  with  her  brother  as 
avowedly  to  borrow  from  him  her  whole  status,  and  par- 
ticularly her  name.  People  have  called  her  by  the  most 
various  names  without  really  understanding  why,  owing  to 
the  fact  that  she  usually  adopted  her  brother's  name,  which 
frequently  changed.  As  sister  of  the  Count  of  Angouleme 
she  called  herself  Margaret  of  Angouleme ;  under  Louis  XII., 
as  sister  of  the  Duke  of  Valois  and  the  heir  to  the  throne, 
she  called  herself  Margaret  of  Valois  or  of  Orleans ;  as  sister 
of  the  king  she  became  Margaret  of  France,  her  definitive 
name,  under  which  she  accomplished  her  mission. 

For  thirty  years  she  presided  thus  over  an  amazing 
intellectual  movement ;  the  whole  thinking  soul  of  France 
hung  upon  her  smile.    She  was  the  incarnation  of  platonism. 

In  one  of  the  galleries  of  Chantilly,  that  sanctuary  of  the 
Renaissance,  her  grand  face,  with  its  long,  severe,  clean-cut, 
distinguished  features,  somewhat  hard  as  though  chiselled 
out  of  alabaster,  continually  smiles  upon  us  and  encourages 
us.  Her  eyes  are  clear  and  full  of  fire ;  her  mouth  is  fine, 
intellectual,  with  something  of  irony,  of  benevolence  and  of 
reserve ;  something  at  once  yielding  and  defensive,  acerbated 
and  enthusiastic,  a  singular  sibylline  countenance,  the 
enigma  of  a  spiritual  governance — the  rule  of  mind  and 
heart;  a  woman  to  the  core,  attractive  and  wishing  to 
attract,  but  two  personalities  in  one,  each  interpenetrating 
the  other,  concealing  her  real  self  within  two  or  three 
inner  entrenchments  after  the  old  feudal  tactics,  like  St. 
Theresa  in  her  "  fortresses  of  the  soul." 

She  reigned  with  undivided  sway,  with  all  the  powers  of 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE  171 

her  affection,  with  her  infinite  womanly  delicacy,  with 
triumphant  skill. 

She  was  in  very  truth  a  woman  of  fire,  this  woman  who 
wrote  to  her  brother  while  a  prisoner  in  Spain  :  "  Whatever 
may  be  required  of  me,  though  it  be  to  fling  to  the  winds 
the  ashes  of  my  bones  to  do  you  service,  nought  will  be 
strange,  or  difficult,  or  painful  to  me,  but  solace,  ease  of 
mind,  honour." 

And  she  was  loved;  men  never  tired  of  praising  her. 
Her  name  became  a  household  word,  and  lives  on  even  in 
our  own  day  in  charming  books,  like  that  devoted  to  her 
by  a  lady  of  rare  genius,  chosen  by  Nature  to  revive  the 
traditions  of  woman's  influence — the  Countess  d'Hausson- 
ville.  And  yet  we  are  always  wondering  what  is  behind 
that  smiling  countenance  at  Chantilly. 

Margaret  is  doubly  complex,  first  as  a  woman,  and  then 
as  a  typical  woman  of  the  sixteenth  century.  She  is 
essentially  a  woman  of  her  period,  and  that  is  why  she 
cannot  but  interest  us.  Her  thoughts,  somewhat  hazy,  and 
sometimes  wrapped  in  rather  odd  garbs,  are  difficult  to  co- 
ordinate because,  unlike  those  of  Anne  of  France,  they  have 
no  spontaneity  or  originality.  Almost  all  of  them  are 
derived  from  without.  Her  lovable  mind  is  like  a  moun- 
tain peak  of  fair  height,  with  nothing  rugged  or  bleak 
about  it :  it  promises  no  sublime  effects,  no  Pisgah  sights ; 
it  pleases  and  interests  us  precisely  because  we  can  reach 
its  summit  by  an  easy  road,  for  which  many  of  us  are 
grateful.  Is  not  that  better  for  poor  tired  folk  than  lofty 
masculine  heights  profitless  and  perilous  to  scale?  It 
springs  gently  from  the  landscape,  like  the  pleasant 
mountains  in  the  heart  of  France,  and  while  enabling  us 
to  take  observation  of  the  sky,  keeps  in  touch  with  the 
earth,  and  from  this  standpoint  we  can  contemplate,  spread 
out  like  a  map,  a  smiling  country  and  highly  decorative 
craters.  It  is  the  "Belvedere"  par  excellence.  Nowhere 
could  we  judge  her  period  better  than  from  the  vantage 
ground  of  her  mind. 

But  it  is  very  clear  that  it  would  be  a  mistake  persistently 
to  look  for  in  her  the  peaks  and  abysses  she  does  not 
possess.  It  has  been  proved  to  demonstration  that,  given 
certain  circumstances — if,  for  example,  he  had  only  been 
killed  at  the  siege  of  Toulon — Napoleon  would  have  died  a 


172      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

captain  of  artillery  ;  and  doubtless  Margaret  of  France,  but 
for  the  accession  of  her  brother,  the  wave  of  feminine 
Italianism,  and  possibly  many  other  circumstances,  would 
have  died  wife  of  the  Duke  of  Alencon  or  the  King  of 
Navarre,  or  even  less.  Yet  we  can  realise  better  than  ever 
to-day  how  vastly  important  her  leadership  was.  Her 
generation  was  that  from  which  we  are  sprung,  to  which  we 
owe  our  blood  and  sinews.  Our  society  is  experiencing 
almost  the  same  uncertainties  and  the  same  attacks;  it 
needs  intelligent  and  active  women  as  much  as  ever. 
Margaret  was  less  bent  on  being  an  exceptional  woman  than 
on  fulfilling  her  part  as  first  lady  of  France.  She  played 
her  part  very  well ;  she  had  her  Ple'iade.1  And  at  her  side 
she  brought  up  as  her  successor  another  Margaret,  her 
niece,  the  future  Duchess  of  Berry  and  of  Savoy,  who  did  in 
fact  continue  the  tradition — not  less  amiable,  not  less 
distinguished,  but  coming  later  and  consequently  more 
charming  still,  and  above  all,  more  calm  and  self-contained. 
Margaret  of  France  had  never  read  Plato  until  towards 
the  end  of  her  life,  and  then,  when  she  discovered  him,  she 
believed  she  had  found  her  guiding  star.  On  the  other  hand, 
she  did  not  permit  Boccaccio  to  be  forgotten.  Her  philo- 
sophy, then,  was  not  very  psychological,  but  it  was  eminently 
social.  The  theories  of  Bembo  seemed  to  her  to  endow 
women  with  a  large  and  beneficent  measure  of  power  ;  and 
that  was  enough.  It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  she 
looked  at  social  questions  themselves  from  a  somewhat 
superior  standpoint,  and  with  a  necessarily  discriminating 
favour.  She  knew  but  one  person,  her  brother,  who  even  in 
the  most  manifest  errors  appeared  to  her  the  ideal  of 
perfection,  "  the  true  Christ."  Apart  from  him  she  loved 
none  but  God,  and  she  adopted  as  her  emblem  a  marigold 
turned  towards  the  sun,  indicating  her  purpose  to  live  and 
breathe  only  "  for  high,  celestial  and  spiritual  things " ; 
other  things,  husbands  included,  seemed  to  her  paltry  and 
mean.     And  thus,  as  a  woman  of  intelligence,  she  hoped  to 

1  [In  reference  to  the  group  of  seven  literary  men  who  banded  themselves 
together  to  reform  and  classicise  the  French  language  and  literature. 
Ronsard,  Du  Bellay,  and  BaSif  were  three  members  of  the  Pleiade  who 
reappear  in  the  following  pages.  But  as  the  manifesto  of  this  coterie  was 
issued  in  1 549,  the  year  of  Margaret's  death,  the  name  Pleiade  is  anticipated 
for  the  literary  court  she  maintained,  the  most  notable  members  of  which 
were  Marot  and  Bonaventure  des  P^riers.] 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE  173 

reign  through  the  affections;  her  most  assiduous  flatterers 
only  extolled  her  heart ;  even  after  her  death  a  pious 
respect  continued  to  watch  over  her  works,  of  which  a 
selection  was  published.  And  yet  she  gave  only  her 
intelligence  to  the  world. 

Her  theory  of  love  is  peculiar  enough.  Love  of  course 
appears  to  her  the  corner-stone  of  the  social  edifice :  in 
itself  it  is  always  good,  only  becoming  bad  by  the  use  made 
of  it.  Margaret  is  eminently  platonist  in  the  sense  that  she 
proclaims  the  existence  of  two  loves,  a  good  and  a  bad ;  but 
to  her  the  distinction  between  them  is  simplicity  itself:  the 
one  is  man's  love,  the  other,  woman's;  men  love  with  an  evil, 
earthly  love,  women  alone  can  love  celestially.  Sometimes 
they  chance  to  allow  themselves  to  be  caught  in  the  snares  of 
men ;  let  them  flee  then,  for  "  briefest  follies  are  always  the 
best."  Thus  loving  is  for  women.  The  love  of  a  woman, 
established  firmly  in  God  and  on  honour,  the  same  love  that 
Henri  d'Albret  styles  "  hypocrisy  or  covert  malice,"  forges  a 
divine  and  holy  chain.  Margaret  never  tires  of  expatiating 
on  the  virtues  of  women's  love,  a  pure  and  ardent  love,  the 
instrument  and  the  end  of  civilisation,  the  highest  form  of 
human  activity,  the  prayer  admirable  beyond  all  other 
prayers  that  a  living  creature  can  address  to  the  Creator. 
In  the  nineteenth  tale  of  the  Heptameron  she  gives  this 
love  a  very  catholic  definition,  borrowed  almost  word  for 
word  from  Castiglione : 

"  I  call  perfect  lovers  those  who  seek  some  perfection, 
either  goodness,  beauty  or  grace,  in  the  object  of  their  love, 
those  who  incline  always  to  virtue  and  have  so  lofty  and 
refined  a  heart  that,  even  at  the  price  of  death,  they  would 
not  aim  at  base  things  that  honour  and  conscience  condemn. 
The  soul  was  created  but  to  return  to  the  supreme  good,  and 
so  long  as  it  is  encased  in  the  body,  it  can  only  long  and 
strive  for  holiness.  But  the  sin  of  our  first  parent  has 
rendered  dark  and  sensual  the  senses,  the  soul's  inevitable 
intermediary  ;  seeing  only  through  them  the  visible  objects 
which  approach  perfection,  the  soul  hastens  to  find  in 
outward  beauty,  in  visible  grace  and  the  moral  virtues,  the 
sovereign  beauty,  grace,  and  virtue.  It  seeks  them,  and  finds 
them  not,  and  passes  by ;  it  essays  to  mount  higher,  like 
children  who,  as  they  grow  bigger,  must  needs  change  their 
dolls.      And  wh^n   at    length    mature    experience  shows 


174     THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

that  neither  perfection  nor  felicity  is  to  be  met  with 
in  this  world,  the  soul  pants  after  the  great  Author  and  the 
very  source  of  the  beautiful.  But  then  may  God  open  its 
eyes !  otherwise  it  must  speedily  stray  into  the  paths  of 
false  philosophy.  For  faith  alone  can  reveal  and  bestow 
what  is  good,  which  carnal,  natural  man  by  himself  never 
could  attain." 

Thus  the  worship  of  beauty  is  not  necessarily  mystical, 
but  it  is  a  true  religion.  We  come  from  God,  and  we  return 
to  God  through  hope  and  love  much  more  surely  than 
through  any  sort  of  reasoning.  The  holy  love  of  the 
beautiful,  of  perfection,  purifies  the  soul  better  than  any 
practical  efforts,  and  little  by  little  raises  it  to  the  ideal 
perception  of  perfect  beauty.  The  soul  then  wings  its  flight 
towards  God,  sustained  by  faith  above  unfathomable  abysses. 

And  so  it  is  necessary  to  proclaim  happiness,  peace, 
gentleness,  joy  to  men  of  good  will,  and  even  to  others,  if  they 
are  to  be  lifted  above  themselves,  their  ambitions,  their 
hatreds,  their  coarsenesses.  What  a  mistake  it  is  to  preach 
a  religion  of  terror  to  poor  creatures  too  wretched  as  it  is ! 

Oh,  que  je  voy  d'erreur  la  teste  ceindre 
A  ce  Dante,  qui  nous  vient  icy  peiudre 
Son  triste  Enfer  et  vieille  Passion.1 

Let  women  learn  their  duty! 

They  are  priestesses  in  the  religion  of  Beauty. 

They  must  win  love,  they  must  themselves  love!  They 
must  be  balm  poured  upon  aching  wounds,  the  beauty  that 
soothes,  the  love  that  accomplishes  a  new  Passion,  taking 
upon  itself  all  the  sorrows  of  others.  Of  old,  a  great  noble 
had  been  recognised  by  his  knowing  how  to  give,  and  by 
his  giving,  not  of  his  superfluity,  but  a  portion  of  himself 
— his  blood  to  his  country,  his  strong  arm  or  his  affection  to 
his  brethren.  It  only  remained  to  feminise  and  spirit- 
ualise this  superb  tradition.  Women  will  give  their  hearts, 
in  other  words,  they  will  diffuse  happiness,  fellowship  in 
the  supreme  life,  life  itself !  "  Love  is  that  which  really 
makes  a  man,  and  without  which  he  is  nought." 

i  Margaret  to  the  King,  1534. 

[Ah,  with  what  error  Dante's  head  is  crowned, 
Who  comes  to  paint  his  Passion,  antique  tale, 
And  with  his  gloomy  Hell  our  souls  astound.] 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE  175 

Life !  Alas !  at  this  word  Margaret  shudders.  She  longs 
to  penetrate  the  great  secret  of  our  destiny.  She  stoops 
over  one  of  her  gentlewomen  lying  at  the  point  of  death,  to 
see  if  she  can  catch  the  passing  of  her  soul !  She  receives  a 
lover  at  the  tomb  of  the  lady  he  came  to  meet,  and  with  a 
tragic  gesture  cries  "  She  is  there  3 "  She  loves  and  preaches 
nothing  but  life.  She  knows  that  death  is  inevitable,  but 
hopes  that  this  accident  may  come  to  her  without  lingering  in 
long  "  suburbs,"  and  she  casts  herself  with  confidence  upon 
the  God  of  platonism  whom  she  believes  in,  whom  she  feels 
to  be  all  love.  From  terrestrial  love  she  expects  to  escape 
at  one  bound  into  the  arms  of  the  other,  the  Great  Love; 
"  from  the  felicity  which  alone  in  this  world  can  be  called 
felicity,  to  fly  suddenly  to  that  which  is  eternal ni  And 
thus  in  her  eyes  man's  natural  end  is  enfolded  in  love  and 
hope  resting  on  faith.  There,  in  the  heart  of  the  villages, 
covered  with  moss  and  honeysuckle,  are  the  humble  tombs, 
the  sacred  shelter  of  those  we  have  loved,  clothed  all  about 
with  life  hard  by  the  radiant  crucifix !  A  sunbeam  floods 
them  in  light,  like  a  stream  of  love  from  on  high.  The  same 
ray  penetrates  our  hearts,  telling  us  that  all  is  not  ended, 
and  that  a  little  joy  is  still  blossoming  upon  this  spot  of 
earth.  Let  us  leave  God  to  count  the  flying  moments — leave 
it  to  Him  in  full  confidence  and  peace! 

Like  all  human  things,  platonism  cannot  attain  perfection ; 
it  necessarily  has  little  to  say  in  regard  to  man's  birth  and 
death.  To  complete  the  reformation  it  would  perhaps  be 
necessary,  as  Goethe  suggests  in  the  second  part  of  Faust, 
to  discover  a  means  of  manufacturing  homunculus,  in  other 
words,  of  effecting  human  reproduction  in  some  other  way 
than  the  old ;  moreover,  instead  of  being  allowed  to  die,  men 
might  comfortably  be  translated  to  other  worlds.  But, 
meanwhile,  platonism  is  the  philosophy  of  the  living,  and  in 
truth  it  is  remarkable  to  see  a  secular  movement  basing 
itself  on  such  lofty  systems,  and  turning  to  such  noble 
account,  intellectually,  morally  and  religiously,  the  natural 
desire  which  the  world  always  has  of  amusing  itself. 

A  strange  generation  was  arising.     Between  1483  and 

1515   Luther,   Calvin  and   St.  Ignatius,  Rabelais  and  St 

Theresa,   were  born   pell-mell.     And  yet,  thanks  to  this 

philosophy,  everyone  wore  the  livery  of  happiness.     Dagger 

1  Htjitamtron,  Tale  40. 


176      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

and  poison  hid  themselves  in  the  shade.  Never  were  the 
most  agitating  problems  more  cheerfully  discussed.  Yes; 
women  know  the  real  value  of  the  visionary  and  the 
immaterial,  of  something  higher  than  hoards  of  mere  gold 
and  silver — the  value  of  the  riches  of  the  souL  The  Latin 
world  was  at  this  moment  becoming  a  vast  workshop  of 
beauty,  the  real  worker  being  no  longer  the  digger  or  the 
merchant,  the  mason  or  the  hodman,  but  whatever  man 
lived  a  life  of  thought  and  love.  There  was  extension  and 
broadening  out  in  all  directions ;  material  barriers  were 
being  overthrown;  the  religion  of  Beauty  was  bringing 
nations  as  well  as  individuals  together.  And  the  women, 
the  ministers  of  the  affections,  had  for  their  mission  to  watch, 
to  judge,  to  temper,  to  develop  the  faculties  of  men.  They 
thought  it  a  beautiful  mission.  Can  we  wonder  at  it? 
They  burned  with  the  ardour  of  paladins;  they  fancied 
themselves  knights-errant,  and  displayed  devices — Non 
inferiora  secutus,  a  masculine  hemistich  which  men  had 
relinquished,  but  which  Margaret  of  France  resumed,  to 
show  that  she  bore  high  her  white  petals  and  her  heart  of 
gold :  "  Love  and  Faith,"  in  other  words,  "  Women  and 
God,"  the  motto  of  Madame  de  Lorraine — a  motto  full  of  joy 
and  charm,  for  if  men  love  because  they  believe,  and  believe 
because  they  love,  life  becomes  an  unalloyed  delight. 

Between  mysticism  and  debauchery  a  middle  term  had 
been  found,  namely,  love. 

When  women  know  how  to  attach  men  to  them  by 
means  of  pure  love,  all  individual  forces  gain  vigour,  a 
nation  flourishes,  and  the  people  are  at  peace. 

That,  at  any  rate,  was  the  new  conviction. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  SCIENCE  OF  PLATONISM 

The  doctrine  we  have  just  indicated  never  excited  any 
very  determined  opposition  as  a  theory;  its  adversaries  re- 
served their  objections  for  its  practical  working.  The  New 
Law,  it  is  true,  had  redeemed  us  in  love ;  but  the  politicians 
held  the  same  opinions  as  the  moralists  of  Du  Four's  school. 
From  Machiavelli  to  Calvin,  many  men  thought  the  blud- 
geon a  simpler  and  more  effectual  guide  for  humanity  than 
sentiment.  At  best  they  would  have  favoured  a  sort  of 
sentimental  sociology.  They  regarded  everything  else  as  a 
mere  philosophic  dream — Eden,  of  which  barely  a  glimpse 
had  been  caught  before  it  was  guarded  by  the  angel  with 
the  terrible  sword ;  the  burning  bush  from  which  issued 
the  voice  of  God,  but  near  which  Moses  dared  not  kneel  for 
fear  his  garments  should  take  fire  and  the  flame  scorch  his 
flesh. 

Assuredly,  the  practical  science  of  platonism  is  more 
difficult  than  its  metaphysic  ;  it  assumes  that  women  have 
the  knack  of  cleverly  taming  men  by  means  of  love's 
blandishments,  without  getting  scratched  themselves.  The 
cleverest  lion-tamers  are  sometimes  clawed,  but  they  have 
been  known  to  die  in  their  beds.  Here  is  the  question  in  a 
nutshell :  Are  women  capable  of  following  this  tamer's 
vocation  and  making  themselves  sufficiently  invulnerable  ? 
and  secondly :  Are  men  tamable  ? 

On  the  first  point  the  friends  of  the  beautiful  displayed 
the  utmost  confidence.  They  made  their  appeal  to  women, 
sensitive — more  than  sensitive,  refined — fortified  by  mar- 
riage against  materialities,  and  inspired  only  with  disgust  by 
the  vulgar  vice  that  came  under  their  eyes  and  even  in  their 
M  177 


178      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

own  circle.     As  Du  Bellay  says,  Cato's  manners  harmonised 

Eerfectly  with  Plato's  discourses.  Margaret  of  France  un- 
esitatingly  descended  into  the  den  and  grappled  with  her 
friend  Bonnivet.1  She  believed  in  the  invulnerability  of 
women,  as  also  did  Castiglione  and  many  others.  The 
platonists  found  no  difficulty  in  justifying  their  position; 
they  cited  heroic  examples  of  feminine  virtue  even  in  the 
remotest  antiquity,  and  they  met  other  admirable  examples 
in  the  ordinary  intercourse  of  life.  Castiglione  and  Dolce 
show  us  women  who  in  the  vilest  environments  were  angels 
of  chastity.  In  most  cases  they  were  young  girls,  for 
instance  a  poor  girl  of  Capua  (very  often  cited)  who  flung 
herself  into  a  river  to  escape  a  troop  of  Gascons ;  a  poor 
peasant  girl  of  Mantua,  who,  betrayed  by  a  scoundrel, 
drowned  herself  with  a  sort  of  frenzy,  flinging  away  all  the 
ropes  held  out  to  her — a  tragic  suicide,  anti-Christian  as 
such,  yet  so  Christian  in  its  grandeur  of  despair  that  the 
Bishop  of  Mantua  proposed  to  erect  a  statue  to  this  noble 
woman  of  the  people.  Unhappily  he  died  before  he  could 
carry  out  his  idea ;  in  those  days  people  fought  shy  of  in- 
artistic statues. 

Such  examples  of  virtue  were  not  met  with  only  among 
the  lower  classes,  which  are  naturally  the  most  exposed  to 
danger.  All  Borne  was  stirred  to  its  depths  by  the  dreadful 
fate  of  a  young  gentlewoman  who,  having  been  decoyed 
into  the  catacombs  of  St.  Sebastian  with  the  connivance  of 
a  maidservant,  strangled  herself  rather  than  yield  to  the 
violence  of  the  miscreant  who  devised  the  snare.  She 
might  well  have  been  left  to  rest  in  the  dim  twilight  of 
those  silent  vaults,  where  so  many  pure  victims  sleep  under 
the  seal  of  a  cross  and  a  dove;  but  Rome  could  not  leave  this 
flower  of  virtue  to  be  forgotten,  even  in  so  sacred  a  spot:  the 
poor  body  was  crowned  with  laurel  and  borne  in  triumph 
like  a  trophy  through  the  thronged  streets  of  the  city,  the 
same  fever  of  enthusiasm  infecting  both  hovel  and  palace. 

No,  women  are  not  naturally  sensual;  animalism  is 
utterly  abhorrent  to  them,  and  however  much  their  educa- 
tion may  have  been  neglected,  their  deepest  feelings  are 

1  [French  admiral  (1488-1525),  who  after  the  defeat  at  Pavia  deliberately 
threw  his  life  away.  He  rivalled  Francis  I.  in  gallantry,  paid  sedulous 
court  to  Margaret,  and  is  said  to  have  been  the  luckless  (and  well- 
scratched)  hero  of  the  nocturnal  escapade  described  in  the  4th  Tale  of  the 
Heptameron.] 


THE  SCIENCE  OF  PLATONISM  179 

won  by  a  man's  intellectual  qualities,  his  moral  authority, 
much  more  than  by  his  physical  beauty,  a  beauty  often  hard 
to  trace.  When  they  love  deeply,  even  when  they  yield 
themselves,  it  is  still  with  a  sentiment  of  reserve  and 
modesty ;  it  would  also  seem  as  if  they  cannot  dispense 
with  the  additional  refinement  of  respect.  Man,  on  the 
contrary,  as  all  the  world  knows,  has  no  sense  of  shame, 
and  to  get  every  possible  enjoyment,  love  or  no  love, 
is  his  only  aim.  It  is  to  singularly  terrestrial  Venuses 
that  peoples  and  kings,  judges  and  culprits,  flock 
pell-mell.  Is  this  a  reason  for  despair  ?  Cannot  the 
obvious  feebleness  of  women,  their  delicacy,  the  almost 
religious  character  of  their  love,  become  an  element  of 
attraction  and  power?  Women,  we  are  told,  deliberately 
expose  themselves  to  sharp  tussles.  That  is  true.  But  if 
men  were  platonic,  what  merit  would  women  have  in  being 
platonic  too  ?  And  surely  no  one  would  impose  on  men,  as 
the  first  rule  of  intercourse,  the  obligation  of  remaining  in 
marble  coldness  beside  beautiful  creatures  of  passion,  whose 
very  nature  is  to  set  their  pulses  throbbing !  "  Ah  !  impos- 
sible!" cries  Margaret  of  France,  to  whom  the  mere  idea 
seems  almost  an  insult.  It  is  wise  to  recognise  danger,  but 
it  would  be  disgraceful  to  flee  from  it !  In  France,  a 
country  hostile  to  the  beautiful  and  to  sentiment,  the  women 
who  preached  the  gospel  of  love  were,  as  we  have  said, 
high-born  dames,  whose  very  position  made  them  wardens 
of  men's  souls,  and  whose  nobleness  constituted  part  of  the 
public  patrimony.  Maybe  they  did  not  believe  themselves 
predestined  to  impeccability;  but  while  enjoying  a  won- 
derful store  of  goodness  and  benevolence,  they  were  at 
the  same  time  proud,  high-strung,  courageous.  Far  from 
terrifying,  peril  inspirited  them ;  to  shrink  from  it  would 
have  appeared  disgraceful  to  Anne  of  France,  who  repre- 
sents prudence  incarnate.  Women  are  not  so  frail  as  people 
are  pleased  to  say.  They  are  only  frail  when  they  wish  to 
be  ;  and  then  it  is  duty  that  guides  their  steps. 

The  real  difficulty,  then,  does  not  lie  in  this  direction. 
The  difficulty  is  to  discover  a  sure  method  of  capturing  men. 
We  have  already  outlined  the  two  theories ;  there  are  like- 
wise two  practical  systems. 

The  first  consists  in  really  devoting  heart  and  soul  to  the 
matter,  the  second  in  the  mere  playing  of  a  part.     The  first 


180      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

is  concrete,  actual,  full  of  zest  and  energy;  the  second  is 
nothing  but  abstractions,  coquetry,  poses,  and  never  extends 
beyond  mere  sentimentality.  Anne  of  France,  manifestly 
wedded  to  the  first  system,  speaks  of  it  with  a  warmth  and 
yet  with  a  wealth  of  circumlocution  that  show,  not  only 
how  much  the  question  interested  her,  but  how  troublesome 
she  found  it. 

A  woman,  she  thinks,  should  not  push  enthusiasm  so  far 
as  to  run  to  meet  love ;  she  may  wait  for  it,  it  comes  soon 
enough  unsought.  In  spite  of  her  very  real  simplicity,  she 
always  impresses  us  as  having  a  touch  of  pride  ;  and  besides, 
she  was  writing  for  her  daughter.  But  what  a  noble  heart 
is  hers,  how  ardent  and  how  generous !  She  distrusts  the 
love  excited  merely  by  physical  beauty,  because  she  regards 
it  as  imperfect,  undistinguished,  commonplace,  of  little 
stability,  subject  to  all  sorts  of  disappointments  and  regrets; 
but  no  less — accustomed  as  she  is  to  deal  with  things 
broadly  and  grandly — does  true  love,  that  which  wells  up 
from  the  heart  and  mind,  and  is  only  strengthened  and 
sanctified  with  increasing  years,  seem  to  her  precious  and 
firm.  When  a  man  can  analyse  his  love  and  tell  himself 
that  it  depends  on  some  definable  beauty,  however  ex- 
quisite— that  of  the  eyes,  perhaps,  or  that  of  a  charming 
manner  or  an  uncommon  mind — in  this  case  the  love  is 
slight.  But  when  it  takes  entire  possession  of  him,  when  he 
knows  not  how  to  describe  it  nor  to  what  to  attribute  it, 
when  it  surprises  him  in  the  plenitude  of  his  vigour,  and 
keeps  him  in  subjection  to  another  person  of  whose  will  he 
becomes  the  mere  echo  ;  above  all,  when  it  inspires  him  with 
the  overpowering  consciousness  that  henceforth  his  life  may 
be  bounded  by  no  other  horizon:  then  it  has  a  superb 
range ;  it  possesses  soul  and  heart ;  the  rest  is  merely  sup- 
plementary— a  more  complete  intimacy,  a  pledge  of  affection. 
The  woman  a  man  most  loves  is  not  the  one  he  covets  most. 
At  twenty  it  is  easy  to  confuse  sensations  with  sentiments ; 
and  that  is  why  true  love  is  not  known  till  later.  It  is  a 
gradual  unfolding;  and  then  it  becomes  so  ardent  as  to 
bring  into  play  all  the  impulsive  forces  of  the  mind.  It  is 
by  this  new  emotional  fruitfulness,  by  this  responsiveness, 
so  to  speak,  to  the  spur,  that  a  man's  worth  is  measured. 
Externally,  on  their  commonplace  side,  all  men  are  alike ; 
their  souls  alone  have  different  physiognomies :  a  time  comes 


THE   SCIENCE   OF  PLATONISM  181 

when  they  are  stirred  to  the  depths,  shaken  out  of  them- 
selves, and  then  it  is  seen  that  there  are  great  souls  and 
small.  Not  too  great,  however,  nor  too  small;  but  quite 
human!  We  cannot  expect  miracles,  or  look  for  the  per- 
fection God  has  reserved  for  Himself.  But  sometimes  the 
reality  is  better  than  appearances  promise :  "  Tis  not  the 
cowl  that  makes  the  monk."  We  should  not  be  too  ready  to 
take  fright  at  an  inconsistency,  or  to  despair  of  men  who  err 
by  excess  of  genuine  sensibility.  These  are  the  easiest  to 
convert. 

An ue  of  France  believes  in  a  method  of  princely  candour. 
She  objects  to  any  woman,  with  the  best  intentions  in  the 
world,  appearing  to  promise  what  she  is  firmly  resolved 
never  to  grant ;  in  this  regard  it  would  be  better  to  retreat 
at  once,  with  no  false  shame,  and  quietly  await  another 
occasion  for  giving  battle. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  love  presents  itself  under  reassuring 
aspects,  it  may  be  accepted.  Honourable  love  is  so  beautiful, 
so  full  of  "  benefits  and  honours  "  !  But  precisely  because  it 
is  so  delightful  a  condition  it  is  rare,  and  the  devil  leaves 
nothing  undone  to  poison  it,and  therefore  it  is  well  to  advance 
with  much  practical  prudence,even  with  distrust !  The  world 
is  so  vile !  Sweet  love  has  often  come  to  a  bad  end !  In 
discussing  this  tender  and  mournful  psychology,  the  great 
princess  would  seem,  under  her  mask  of  impassibility  as  a 
philosophical  woman,  to  utter  a  cry  of  pain  as  though 
bleeding  from  an  internal  wound :  "  I  have  known  a  knight," 
she  says,  "  who  heaped  oath  on  oath  of  the  most  sacred 
character,  even  on  the  holy  altars,  on  the  gospel,  and  who 
did  not  keep  them  even  till  the  evening."  She  is  one  of 
those  who,  giving  the  heart,  give  it  wholly,  and  how  perilous 
that  is  is  manifest.  A  genuine  platonist,  however,  she 
acknowledges  no  degrees  in  honour ;  there  is  no  splitting  it 
up ;  it  must  be  preserved  in  its  entirety :  and  the  primitive, 
strenuous,  almost  naive  lady  concludes  that  chastity  does  not 
consist  solely  in  "saving  oneself  from  the  overt  act." 
Among  the  women  who  skate  more  venturously  near  the 
danger  point  there  is  not  one  in  a  thousand,  she  thinks,  but 
has  lost  something  of  her  honour  or  of  her  illusions. 

Of  this  sculptural  view  of  love — majestic,  holy,  like  certain 
of  Wagner's  harmonies,  but  necessarily  very  rare — Michel- 
angelo is  a  practical  exemplification. 


182      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Madly  smitten,  at  the  age  of  fifty-one,  with  a  lady  of 
thirty-six,  whom,  however,  he  did  not  see  till  twelve  years 
later ;  so  mastered  by  his  agitation  as  to  pen  two  extra- 
ordinary letters — which,  incomprehensible  as  they  appear, 
Messieurs  Milanesi,  Gotti  and  Mezieres  have  succeeded  in 
interpreting — writing  one  letter  three  times  over  without 
making  up  his  mind  to  send  it  (it  never  was  sent) — that 
was  the  man  known  as  Michelangelo. 

Why  did  he  love  the  Marchioness  of  Pescara !  For  her 
beauty  ?  No.  For  her  wit  ?  No.  He  loved  her  because 
he  loved  her :  there  is  no  more  to  be  said.  He  asked  nothing 
of  her.  She  was  the  woman  of  his  heart;  to  her  he 
dedicated  all  the  fibres  of  his  being.  He  saw  with  her  eyes, 
acted  by  her  inspiration,  "  no  longer  conscious  of  aught  but 
the  memory  of  her."  And  he  was  happy,  and  unhappy. 
What  energy  of  expression  there  is  in  his  sonnets  when  his 
vigour  bursts  out  in  passionate  laments!  But  for  the 
most  part  this  vigour  seems  itself  to  yield  to  respect  and 
enthusiasm. 

A  genuine  patrician,  sweet  and  unaffected,  the  marchioness 
understood  with  wonderful  intuition  the  man  who  was  ad- 
dressing her,  and  proved  what  in  such  a  case  a  woman  may 
do  with  a  man.  Condivi,  who  had  seen  her  correspondence, 
described  it  as  full  of  a  grave  and  profoundly  moving  love ; 
the  fragments  which  have  come  down  to  us  indicate  a 
thousand  little  tendernesses :  "  Our  friendship  is  stable,  and 
our  affection  very  sure ;  it  is  tied  with  a  Christian  knot." 
And  here  is  the  address  outside  a  letter :  "  To  my  more  than 
magnificent  and  more  than  very  dear  Messer  Michelangelo 
Buonarotti." 

It  was  the  same  with  their  talks  together ;  love  only 
served  to  give  their  conversation  an  elevated  tone.  A  certain 
Francois  de  Hollande,  who  happened  one  day  to  be  in  their 
company,  has  preserved  some  characteristic  fragments  of 
their  conversation.  The  marchioness  was  formulating  quite 
a  scheme  of  splendid  idealism :  "  Painting,"  she  said,  "  better 
than  any  other  means,  enables  us  to  see  the  humility 
of  the  saints,  the  constancy  of  the  martyrs,  the  purity 
of  the  virgins,  the  beauty  of  the  angels,  the  love  and 
charity  with  which  the  seraphim  burn;  it  raises  and 
transports  mind  and  soul  beyond  the  stars,  and  leads  us  to 
contemplate  the  eternal  sovereignty  of  God.     .     .     .     If  we 


THE  SCIENCE   OF   PLATONISM  183 

desire  to  see  for  ourselves  a  man  renowned  for  his  deeds, 
painting  shows  us  him  to  the  life.  It  brings  before  our 
eyes  the  image  of  a  beauty  far  removed  from  our  experience, 
and  Pliny  held  this  to  be  a  service  of  priceless  value.  The 
widow  in  her  affliction  finds  solace  in  gazing  every  day 
upon  her  husband's  picture ;  young  orphans  owe  to  painting 
the  happiness  of  recognising,  when  they  have  come  to 
man's  estate,  the  features  of  a  beloved  father." 

Is  not  this  true  love,  to  love  the  beautiful,  the  object  of 
love  to  so  many  besides  ourselves  ?  Is  not  this  the  enchant- 
ing joy  dreamed  of  by  Anne  of  France,  so  sweet  for  a 
woman,  and  lifting  a  man  "  beyond  the  stars  "  ?  But  this 
love  is  terribly  individual  and  exclusive ! 

Twenty  years  later  Michelangelo  lost  the  lady  of  his 
soul.  He  stood  by  her  death-bed.  With  reverence  and 
pity  he  pressed  a  long  kiss  upon  her  hand,  not  daring,  even 
at  that  tragic  moment  when  Death  purifies  all  things,  to 
touch  ever  so  lightly  that  pale  cold  brow;  though  many  a 
time,  in  truth,  he  regretted  the  timidity  of  his  farewell. 
Condivi  tells  us  that  he  was  frantic  with  grief.  Night  had 
closed  her  wings  upon  his  life;  he  could  never  hear  the 
marchioness  mentioned  without  tears  starting  in  his  eyes : 
"We  had  a  great  mutual  regard,"  he  said;  "Death  has 
snatched  from  me  a  great  friend."  A  great  friend !  He 
became  religious ;  in  his  robust  old  age  his  soul  maintained 
its  fire,  like  some  deep  pool  which,  in  the  blackness  of 
night,  still  reflects  the  sunset  glow.  He  died  at  the  age  of 
ninety,  and  among  his  papers  were  found  the  letters  of  the 
marchioness,  and  the  sonnets  he  wrote  for  her — though 
cunning  pilferers  had  carried  off  a  portion  of  these,  which, 
unhappily,  they  kept  for  themselves. 

The  other,  and  more  numerous,  school  of  platonists 
started  from  an  absolutely  different  principle.  It  was  much 
less  individual,  and  much  more  sociological.  It  was  cul- 
tured, to  all  appearance  without  enthusiasm,  keenly  sensi- 
tive, wholly  of  this  world,  or  if  it  moved  at  all  toward  the 
ideal  it  was  by  many  tortuous,  obscure  and  labyrinthine 
paths  of  which  it  would  sometimes  be  difficult  to  draw  an 
accurate  map.  It  was  philosophical;  its  method  was  to  coax 
the  human  animal,  to  converse  with  him,  to  lure  him  with 
smiles  and  soft  words,  and  to  wind  about  him  a  multi- 
tude of  slender  cords  till  he  was  reduced  to  helplessness. 


184      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

The  method  was  considered  eminently  laudable,  and  indeed 
it  demanded  infinite  tact,  time  and  patience ;  for  what  was 
involved  was  nothing  less  than  the  training  of  "  the  other 
partner  "  in  habits  of  refinement  and  discretion — to  content 
himself  with  a  few  tit-bits  of  love  or  kindliness,  to  refrain 
from  constantly  showing  teeth  and  claws  with  a  cry  for  his 
"  reward  " — the  wolfish  cry,  the  roar  of  the  beast  of  prey  ! 
A  light  hand  was  needed.  Men,  snared  in  cold  blood, 
appeared  so  commonplace,  so  much  alike ! 

The  little  favours  by  which  men  were  held  captive  were 
in  no  way  open  to  censure ;  they  were  virtue  itself,  for  the 
end  justified  the  means.  The  art  which  regulated  the  dis- 
pensation of  these  favours  may  justly  be  regarded  as  a 
complicated  one.  It  grew  out  of  long  habit,  and  was  not 
learnt  from  books;  it  was  the  Machiavelism  of  a  special 
charity,  a  supreme  devotion,  veiy  often  the  immolation  of 
self;  and  it  was  precisely  this  admirable  feature  which 
distinguished  platonism  from  coquetry:  "O  Love!"  cried 
Bembo,  "it  is  by  thee  that  the  higher  virtues  rule  the 
lower."  How  many  of  these  strange,  admirable  women 
might  be  mentioned,  who  devoured  men  like  veritable 
Minotaurs,  and  who,  after  devouring  them,  would  have 
liked  to  resurrect  them  for  another  meal ! 

The  Marchesa  Scaldasole,  of  Pavia,  was  one  of  these 
terrible  harpies;  yet  she  acted  with  absolute  frankness. 
One  day,  at  a  ball,  she  said  to  a  young  protonotary  named 
De  Lescun,  who  was  losing  his  head  a  little :  "  You  see,  I 
do  as  your  guards  do,  who  fix  a  tassel  to  their  horses' 
cruppers,  to  warn  people  not  to  go  too  near,"  and  she  pointed 
to  her  sky-blue  dress :  in  Italy,  blue  denoted  heavenward 
aspirations.  Lescun  was  devoured  like  the  rest.  By  a 
strange  freak  of  fate,  he  happened  to  be  severely  wounded 
beneath  the  walls  of  Pavia  in  the  famous  battle  of  Francis 
I.  When  he  was  picked  up,  covered  with  blood,  he  asked 
to  be  carried  to  the  house  of  his  ■  dear  lady  and  patroness." 
The  marchesa  received  these  quivering  shreds  of  humanity 
with  transports  of  tenderness,  and  it  was  in  her  arms, 
sustained  by  her  loving  look  and  consoled  by  her  pious 
words,  that  Lescun  breathed  his  last. 

I  know  not  how  La  Rochefoucauld  could  say :  "  The  first 
lover  is  kept  long  when  no  second  is  taken."  It  is  the 
vice  of  men  not  to  know  when  to  stop.     Nothing  grieved 


THE  SCIENCE  OF  PLATONISM  185 

Margaret  of  France  like  the  thought  that  a  man,  to  qualify 
as  a  "  man  of  honour "  and  a  "  pleasant  companion,"  was 
expected  to  kill  someone  for  giving  him  the  lie,  and  to  love 
a  dozen  women.  She  objected  strongly  to  a  happily 
settled  man,  as  she  says,  going  prowling  over  the  world, 
were  it  ever  so  platonically:  "  it  is  wisest  to  remain  satisfied 
where  love  has  once  attached  us." 

The  women,  on  the  contrary,  anxious  to  fulfil  their  social 
duty,  thought  themselves  bound  to  sow  love  broadcast,  to 
distribute  their  favours  widely ;  by  that  means  they  pro- 
tected themselves  against  the  tongue  of  malice,  though  at 
the  cost  of  desperately  hard  work  and  many  embarrass- 
ments. For  every  man  of  intelligence  and  breeding  who 
knows  better  than  to  display  too  much  whimsicality,  how 
many  jealous,  touchy,  tiresome  men  there  are !  A  princess 
could  do  no  less  than  be  kind  to  a  number  of  favourites ; 
Margaret  of  France  loved  not  far  short  of  a  dozen,  and  the 
number  was  only  so  small  because  of  the  difficulty  of  finding 
recruits  for  platonism. 

We  must  remember  the  idea  from  which  these  women 
started,  which  was  absolutely  the  reverse  of  that  which  now 
prevails.  In  these  days  women  are  careful  not  to  generalise ; 
they  prefer  to  personalise  everything — medicine  in  the 
doctor,  religion  in  the  priest,  the  family  in  the  husband, 
love  in  the  lover.  The  women  of  the  sixteenth  century,  we 
cannot  repeat  too  often,  had  an  ardent  faith  in  things,  but 
none  at  all  in  men  ;  they  had  no  intention  whatever  of 
being  in  bondage  to  a  man,  whoever  he  was,  but  preferred 
to  go   straight   to  the  idea,  and  then  to  make  its  inter- 

{)reter  their  apostle,  or  what  they  pleased.  They  were  in 
ove  with  love,  but  were  unquestionably  prone  to  regard 
the  lover  as  of  secondary  importance,  or  at  the  most  as  the 
minister  of  their  cult,  not  their  master.  Trustfulness  and 
self-surrender  struck  them  as  delightful,  desirable,  religious, 
almost  necessary,  when  based  on  a  broad  principle  of 
liberty,  and  when  they  furnished  a  goal  at  which  the 
affections  might  aim. 

We  must  insist  also  on  another  most  important  considera- 
tion, which  the  reader  will  already  have  suspected.  These 
ladies  did  not  labour  for  their  personal  happiness ;  in  most 
cases  they  had  no  hope  of  ever  attaining  it.  They  dis- 
covered a  means  of  giving  life  to  others,  but  lacked  it  for 


186      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

themselves ;  they  had  known  either  too  much  or  too  little 
of  existence.  They  were  dissatisfied — out  of  conceit — with 
everything,  perhaps  with  themselves ;  they  had  been 
mothers,  and  were  yet  maids.  For  the  soul,  like  the  body, 
needs  to  give  itself,  and  on  this  condition  depends  its  life 
and  fruitfulness.  Now  many  of  these  women  had  shadowy 
and  inscrutable  souls — souls  whose  pages  no  one  had  troubled 
to  turn ;  they  smothered  their  feelings,  but  they  had  suffered 
much,  and  still  suffered.  Hitherto  they  had  given  only 
their  body,  the  poorest  part  of  them,  the  contaminated  part, 
the  part  that  is  lost  in  the  giving ;  while  the  soul  is 
ennobled  and  purified  by  self-surrender.  They  had  perforce 
to  cut  themselves  in  two,  and  as  maidens  to  look  on  at  the 
ruin  of  one  part  of  themselves,  and  nothing  was  more 
painful  than  this  cleavage ;  philosophers  even  maintained 
that  it  was  an  impossible  one,  and  that,  when  a  woman 
yielded  her  body,  under  obligation  or  necessity,  sometime* 
with  disgust,  she  gave  nothing,  but  remained  immaculately 
a  virgin,  because  the  true  virginity  is  that  of  the  heart. 
Indeed,  a  favourite  idea  of  that  time  was  that  whatever 
vicissitudes  the  bodily  mechanism  might  undergo,  only  the 
soul  could  endorse  them. 

Here,  then,  were  unhappy  dilettanti  of  love,  who,  regard- 
ing animal  passion  as  the  antipodes,  almost  the  negation,  of 
true  passion,  rigorously  safeguarded  their  purity,  and 
adopted  platonism  as  the  channel  through  which  to  bestow 
their  souls  on  mankind,  with  a  smiling  disenchantment, 
almost  happy  in  possessing  at  least  the  assurance  that  in 
this  harmless  game  there  would  be  only  occasional  out- 
bursts of  the  violence  of  love.  They  chose  the  good  part, 
sowing  broadcast,  in  a  soil  often  ungrateful,  the  seeds  of  a 
love  of  which  they  had  been  harshly  deprived,  and  the 
fruits  of  which  they  hoped  probably  that  others  would 
gather.  Many  of  them  had  lovers,  but  true  love  comes 
only  once,  and  among  these  charming  women,  all  fire  in 
appearance,  there  were  some  who  bore,  deep  down  in  their 
hearts,  an  unsuspected  burden  of  sorrow  which  oppressed 
and  overwhelmed  them.  With  some  of  them  passion  had 
never  ceased  to  rumble ;  some  had  been  seen  to  become 
desperately  attached  to  a  man  (maybe  their  own  husband), 
or  even  to  fling  themselves  into  a  nunnery.  The  most  of 
them,  more  sick  than  those  they  wished  to  cure,  and  faltering 


THE  SCIENCE  OF  PLATONISM  187 

inwardly  under  the  outward  charms  of  their  devotion,  went 
their  way,  vainly  seeking  in  life's  desert  the  heart,  the  one 
only  heart,  sensitive  enough  to  comprehend  them.  They 
steered  their  way  composedly  among  the  billows,  in  complete 
security,  alas !  and  without  adventuring  anything  but 
their  good  sense,  at  most  their  good  nature,  which  Anne  of 
France  severely  calls  their  hypocrisy.  Ah !  how  they  smart 
for  this  hypocrisy !  How  much  of  their  life-blood  it  costs 
them !  We  yearn  to  strip  off  their  veils,  to  beseech  them 
to  take  thought  for  themselves  and  put  some  faith  in 
passion !  But  no,  they  lead  our  woful  procession  like 
singing  children,  and,  forcing  back  their  tears  like  Margaret 
of  France,  they  strew  a  few  rose-leaves  in  our  doleful  path : 

De  petite  amours  a,  fleurettes, 
D'autres  petites  amourettes, 
Mesmement  de  vieilles  amours,1 

—  Voiture. 

and  the  sole  benefit  is  reaped  by  us,  or  at  least  by  men 
capable  of  enjoying  an  illusion.  Sometimes,  in  their  infinite 
goodness,  they  may  give  us  divine  moments  that  compensate 
for  the  painfulness  of  life  ;  they  succeed  in  thrilling  us  with 
that  magnetic  influence  which  quickens  our  faculties,  sends 
our  life  into  a  wider  channel,  makes  commonplace  actions 
seem  interesting  to  us,  gives  higher  relief  and  brighter  colour 
to  all  our  surroundings.  They  do  a  good  work,  a  pious 
work,  a  social  work.  And  that  is  why  this  loveless  love 
fell  especially  to  the  lot  of  princesses.  At  first  sight  the 
idea  of  making  love  so  excessively  aristocratic  appears 
somewhat  singular,  if  not  repugnant.  What  is  the  value  of 
distinctions  of  birth  in  such  a  matter  ?  To  sincere  hearts 
they  can  only  raise  obstacles  to  genuine  happiness.  This 
was  especially  the  opinion  of  Anne  of  France.  Could  it  be 
right  to  dignify  with  the  name  of  love  or  platonism  a 
wretched  coquetry  which  consisted  in  attaching  oneself  to 
the  most  conspicuous  women,  whoever  they  were  ? — for 
some  were  plain,  and,  what  was  worse,  influential ! — so  that 
this  so-called  love  would  oscillate  between  snobbishness  and 
solicitation  of  the  kind  nowadays  practised  upon  a  minister 
of  state — whose  ugliness  does  not  matter.     Assuredly  it  is 

1  [Loves  like  little  budding  flowers, 
Loves  to  sweeten  idle  hours, 
Likewise  old  amours.] 


188      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

f>ossible  to  love  a  plain  woman  with  all  one's  heart ;  such 
ove,  indeed,  is  said  to  be  the  strongest  But  how  difficult 
it  must  have  been  in  those  days  for  a  princess  to  believe  in 
a  disinterested  love !  And  even  supposing  such  happiness 
were  hers,  could  she  ever  have  relied  upon  it  ? 

So  the  love  of  princesses,  which  was  an  essential  char- 
acteristic of  platonism,  sprang  in  reality  from  a  very  special 
principle.  The  princesses  (and  other  great  ladies)  had  no 
experience  whatever  of  the  sentiment  (very  masculine  and 
somewhat  modern)  that  everything  was  theirs  by  right,  and 
that  a  certain  lofty  egotism  was  the  natural  complement  of 
a  lofty  station.  On  the  contrary,  they  imagined  themselves 
to  be  the  property  of  society,  so  to  speak,  and  not  their  own 
— and  further,  as  they  realised  that  a  great  name  is  just  as 
isolating  and  paralysing  as  a  large  fortune,  if  not  more  so, 
they  considered  themselves  specially  bound  to  keep  their 
activities  in  full  play.  Their  efforts  were  sweetened  by 
their  pride.  That  the  woman  should  have  the  castle  and 
the  man  the  cottage,  that  she  should  be  rich  and  he  poor, 
seemed  to  them  a  good  thing :  it  was  the  subversion  of  old 
ideas,  but  the  consecration  of  the  idea  that  was  to  be. 
They  found  a  special  charm  in  material  inequalities  of 
position ;  it  was  often  distressing  to  have  to  raise  a  man 
morally,  but  it  was  delightful  to  raise  him  in  a  material 
sense ;  as  Balzac  has  said,  "  No  man  has  ever  been  able  to 
raise  his  mistress  to  his  own  level,  but  a  woman  always 
places  her  lover  as  high  as  herself." 

This  explains  why,  in  the  eyes  of  all  the  friends  of  the 
Beautiful  at  that  epoch,  every  princess  was  beautiful,  in 
other  words,  she  piloted  the  world  towards  the  idea  of  the 
Beautiful.  Failing  a  princess,  or  a  lady  of  title,  or  an 
eminent  woman,1  a  man  might  content  himself  with  a  simple 
maid-of-honour ;  but  it  would  be  almost  to  fail  in  respect 
towards  princesses  of  the  blood-royal  not  to  fall  in  love  with 

1  Amoureux  suis  d'une  paintresse, 
Qui  est  belle  en  perfection. 
Son  geste  plein  d'affection 
La  fait  juger  demie  princesse. 

— OUlea  cFAurigny. 

[I  adore  a  painter  dear, 
Perfect  grace  and  beauty  she, 
And  her  loving  ways  to  me 
Make  her  half  princess  appear.] 


THE  SCIENCE  OF  PLATONISM  189 

them,  since  they  were  born  for  that  end ;  and  indeed  a 
certain  accent  of  ardour  did  not  displease  them,  for,  as  they 
told  themselves,  "everybody  knows  that  a  fortress  is  only 
stormed  when  it  seems  hopeless  to  expect  weakness  or 
treachery."1  Nothing  flattered  them  more ;  in  the  admirable 
words  of  Alfred  de  Vigny:  "  In  the  purest  relationships  of  life 
there  are  nevertheless  things  which  are  only  poured  into  one 
single  heart,  as  into  a  chosen  vessel."  This  chosen  vessel 
must  be  rare  and  delicately  fashioned,  all  compact  of 
idealism,  intellectuality  and  tenderness. 

The  love  of  princesses,  therefore,  however  sincere  and 
intoxicating,  manifested  itself  with  crystal  purity.  When 
a  poet  makes  extravagant  boast  of  the  beauty  of  his  mistress, 
who  is  sometimes  of  mature  years,  we  may  be  quite  sure  he 
means  beauty  of  soul,  "  which  is  all-sufficient,"  as  Margaret 
ingenuously  says.  The  only  misfortune  of  the  princesses 
was  often  their  scant  knowledge  of  the  human  heart ;  they 
saw  too  much  of  the  worldly,  showy,  conventional  exterior, 
and  it  was  that  usually  which  made  them  pessimists.  But 
they  exerted  a  powerful  sway.  And  as  their  favours, 
coming  whence  they  did,  had  no  important  sequels,  they 
were  not  niggardly  in  bestowing  them.  Of  what  is  not  a 
woman  capable  who  has  nothing  to  fear,  either  from  herself 
or  from  others  ?  In  such  a  case  there  is  danger  only  for  the 
man.  Certain  ladies  took  men  and  stirred  them  up,  shook 
them  as  you  shake  a  tree  whose  fruit  you  desire  to  bring 
down.  And,  to  tell  the  truth,  they  were  even  taunted  with 
carrying  this  science  of  theirs  too  far.  Margaret  of  France 
in  particular  has  been  generally  regarded  as  a  consummate 
virtuoso  ;  unquestionably  she  often  puzzles  us,  and  gives  us 
the  uneasy  feeling  that  she  is  making  fools  of  us.  She 
herself  boasted  of  juggling  with  the  hearts  of  men,  of 
"  winning  her  devoted  servants,"  and  of  managing  them  so 
well  that  literally  they  no  longer  knew  what  to  make  of 
her.  "  The  most  daring,"  she  says,  "  were  reduced  to 
despair,  and  the  most  down-hearted  saw  a  ray  of  hope."2  So, 
while  those  who  know  her  story  most  intimately — Madame 
d'Haussonville,  M.  Anatole  France,  Madame  de  Genlis — 
come  forward  as  guarantees  of  her  absolute  virtue,  those 
who,  like  Brantome,  peep  at  her  through  the  window 
regard  her  as  a  coquette,  which  indeed  was  her  mother's 

1  Heplameron,  Tale  18.  2Ibid.,  Tale  58. 


190      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

opinion.  Shall  I  confess  it?  I  myself,  during  the  years, 
now  no  small  portion  of  my  life,  which  I  have  devoted  to 
the  service  of  these  adorable  women,  during  the  many  long 
hours  spent  in  delightful  intimacy  with  them,  wholly 
absorbed  in  deciphering  the  enigma  of  their  hearts,  have 
known  and  felt  these  singular  perplexities.  One  day  the 
ladies  have  enchanted  me,  almost  given  me  wings ;  another, 
they  have  crushed  me  into  the  dust :  one  day  I  would  fain 
kiss  their  hands'  with  all  the  ardour  of  a  loyal  worshipper ; 
another,  long  to  obliterate  their  very  footprints.  Some- 
times I  have  glowed  with  pride,  fancying  myself  master 
of  this  fervent  love  of  which  they  used  to  speak  so  well; 
and  thrilled  through  and  through  with  their  overflowing 
enthusiasm  I  have  seen  the  world  become  transfigured 
behind  them,  our  pale  northern  mists  dissolve  in  radiant 
colour,  our  sky  become  translucent — and  next  day  I  would 
trudge  mechanically  behind  them  in  utter  mystification. 
Passion  and  irony  have  in  turn  moved  my  pen,  and  having 
mutually  slain  each  other,  I  know  not  whether  anything  is 
left.  And  to-day  even,  when  I  am  seeking  earnestly  to 
lisp  the  praises  of  these  ladies,  when  as  the  prize  of  serious 
and  constant  effort  I  beseech  of  them  some  positive  pledge 
of  their  thought,  they  flit  like  butterflies  before  me ! 

Yet  they  had  hearts,  large  hearts,  it  is  impossible  to  doubt, 
— hearts  staunch  and  ardent ;  but  they  shrank  from  employ- 
ing them.  They  dallied  in  a  dim  twilight  sensibility,  like 
that  noble  lady  of  Genoa,  Thomasina  Spinola,  who  had 
broken  all  material  ties  with  her  husband  in  order  to  devote 
her  thoughts  to  King  Louis  XII.  One  day  the  rumour 
spread,  falsely,  that  Louis  was  dead,  and  soon  it  was 
reported  at  Blois  that  Thomasina  was  dead  also.  Thereupon 
the  official  poet  recited  an  interminable  elegy.  Happily, 
both  Louis  XII.  and  Thomasina  had  many  years  to  live. 
No  one  durst  smile  at  matters  so  eminently  respectable, 
though  Anne  of  France  was  indignant ;  in  her  opinion  love 
was  dishonoured  by  such  proceedings,  and  she  would  readily 
have  forgiven  men  for  not  taking  these  pleasant  comedies 
too  seriously. 

Strange  women !  Perhaps  they  themselves  dared  not 
probe  their  souls!  The  artists  who  painted  them  must 
have  dropped  their  brush  and  peered  into  the  heart  of  their 
idol,  and  asked  themselves  whether  it  was  a  Beatrice  or  a 


THE  SCIENCE  OF  PLATONISM  191 

Venus  they  were  painting.  A  strange  veil  covers  their 
features;  as  a  skilful  artist  contents  himself  with  vague 
suggestions  where  a  perfect  rendering  is  impossible,  so 
their  souls  have  deliberately  blotted  themselves  in  mist, 
blurring  their  outlines,  and  throwing  us  into  uncertainty. 
These  women  are  frank,  and  reserved;  they  attract,  and 
repel;  embrace  us,  and  hold  us  at  arm's  length;  allure 
us,  and  alienate  us.  Now  they  are  like  virgin  soil,  now  like 
paths  too  many  feet  have  trod.  Their  contemporaries  were 
baffled  by  them ;  we  too  may  well  fail  to  comprehend  this 
platonism — we  who  see  it  from  afar. 

Such  is  the  magic  haze  in  which  Leonardo  has  enwrapped 
his  Gioconda.  Everything  is  there,  but  he  tells  us  nothing 
save  that  this  is  she.  He  barely  hints  at  her  subtle  mind, 
her  soft,  pure  flesh  ;  you  seem  to  catch  a  delicate  perfume 
floating  in  the  air.  The  world  around  her  seems  sunk  in 
torpor ;  the  landscape  fades  away  in  indefinite  and  fantastic 
suggestions.  And  the  woman  dominating  it  all  pursues  us 
with  her  complex  look — the  look  that  all  these  women 
have ;  she  seems  to  be  several  women  superimposed — a 
succession  of  appetites,  a  mingling  of  languors,  thoughts 
crowded  on  thoughts,  an  encumbrance  of  flesh.  Voluptuous- 
ness and  intelligence  are  there  too,  held  in  reserve.  She 
terrifies  us,  for  she  is  too  richly  endowed  ;  she  will  give 
nothing :  she  is  a  woman  of  braina 

And  yet  we  err  in  not  trying  to  understand  these 
women  !  We  do  not  understand  them  because  we  set  them 
apart,  picture  them  as  solitary  in  their  defensive  attitude, 
shutting  our  eyes  to  what  engrosses  their  mistrustful  looks 
— the  cruel  welter  of  humanity  around  them. 

With  Anne  of  France  and  Vittoria  Colonna  we  met 
Michelangelo.  But  whom  shall  we  find  flocking  about 
these  gracious  priestesses  of  love  ?  Contemptible  drones, 
ambitious  men,  empty-headed  fools,  young  fops,  youths 
anxious  to  push  their  way  in  the  world,  society  clowns, 
scholars  in  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf,  a  whole  herd  of  men 
who  have  their  reasons  for  liking  the  tame  cat's  role,  and 
certainly  would  never  think  of  love  unless  someone  men- 
tioned it.  Is  it  in  any  real  sense  cheating  to  cheat  such 
men  ?  There  are  sceptics  like  the  excellent  Montaigne, 
who  love  in  order  to  find  relief  from  their  worries ;  others 
who  love  for  a  wager,  like  Nifo,  who  went  sweethearting 


192      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

because  it  amused  Cardinal  Pompeo  Colonna.  There  are 
pedants  and  hair-splitters ;  men  who  analyse  and  refine  and 
talk  of  social  duty — speak  too  of  their  love  for  humanity 
at  large,  for  irrational  things,  for  the  All-in-all,  for  super- 
natural beings,  for  the  angels.  They  make  love  an  amuse- 
ment like  dicing  and  racing.  They  tell  off  on  their  fingers 
the  various  species  of  love. 

Nifo  amused  himself  by  cataloguing  the  motives  leading 
to  love  or  "re-love."  He  found  fifteen  chief  motives:  (1) 
Youth.  (2)  Nobility  (since  aristocracy  springs  from  love, 
and  love  from  aristocracy).  (3)  Wealth,  a  tainted  source, 
but  abundant.  (4)  Power.  It  is  to  this  last  that  he 
maliciously  ascribes  the  love  of  princesses,  the  best  and 
most  practical  of  all.  Ambitious  by  destiny,  he  says,  prin- 
cesses necessarily  yearn  for  glory  ;  wherefore  they  are  more 
accessible  than  others,  and  no  one  renders  love  graver,  loftier, 
more  substantial.  (5)  Beauty,  a  very  stimulating  factor, 
but  secondary.  (6)  The  mere  rapture  of  the  senses.  Alas ! 
many  women,  even  in  the  highest  stations,  must  have 
owed  shameful  connections  to  this  cause !  (7)  Fame.  The 
thought  of  hearing  themselves  sung  about,  of  seeing  them- 
selves in  pictures  and  statues,  of  being  analysed  and  made 
the  subject  of  dissertations,  is  a  strong  incentive  to  love  : 
women  love  posterity  in  this  guise.  (8)  The  love  of  love, 
the  artistic  pleasure  in  knowing  themselves  loved,  adored. 
(9)  Elegant  love,  a  matter  of  gay  doublets  and  a  good 
stable.  (10)  Obsequious  love,  not  very  amusing,  but  prac- 
tical and  very  common ;  a  love  made  up  of  little  attentions, 
little  symbolic  presents,  balls  and  banquets ;  Nifo  had  seen 
Prince  Ferdinand  of  Salerno  win  his  lady  by  means  of  a 
ball.  And  after  these  principal  categories,  there  come 
secondary  inducements  to  love,  which,  in  spite  of  their 
commonness,  are  constantly  successful ;  fine  melodramatic 
rages,  comprising  disdain,  jealousy,  frenzy — all  excellent 
investments ;  or  the  more  peaceable  and  rudimentary  means, 
such  as  entertainments  (provided  they  are  intellectual), 
flattery  (highly  recommended),  prayer,  this  too,  excellent, 
according  to  the  maxim  of  Martial — 

Nor  prayer  nor  incense  e'er  did  Jove  despite. 

Lovers  have  only  too  many  methods  to  choose  from,  and 
the  advantage  of  these  sentiments  (generally  feigned),  is 


THE  SCIENCE  OF  PLATONISM  193 

that  thanks  to  them  anybody,  however  modest  his  resources, 
can  find  something  to  suit  him ;  it  is  the  bazaar  of  love. 

And  thus  raw  individualism,  the  mainspring  of  human 
energy,  was  to  become  transformed  and  to  tend  towards  a 
collective  end. 

Poor  women !  they  were  under  no  illusion  about  the 
superficial  effect  they  for  the  most  part  produced;  they 
knew  that  perhaps  it  would  all  amount  to  no  more  than  an 
outward  show  of  improvement,  and  that  at  bottom  man 
would  remain  the  vulgar  and  self-seeking  creature  he  was.1 
This  thought  confirmed  them  in  their  platonism  and  their 
virtue ;  if  there  was  no  better  result,  they  told  themselves 
that,  after  all,  to  awaken  mere  sensibility  was  not  an  abso- 
lute waste  of  time ;  that  it  was  a  merit  to  refine  vice,  to 
"  polish  it  up,"  to  drape  it  with  hypocrisy,  to  rule  men  and 
impress  their  intelligence  even  by  indirect  means :  they 
found  the  occupation  every  whit  as  interesting  as  piling  up 
household  linen  or  polishing  the  furniture.  They  hoped 
that  the  future  would  justify  their  devotion.  After  all 
their  love  was  only  a  means ;  the  end  was  to  pour  upon  life 
a  little  joy,  a  little  balm,  light,  power,  happiness — to  shower 
happiness  everywhere. 

1  Heptamerm,  Tale  14. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  MISSION  OF  BEAUTY 

Before  we  can  make  others  happy  we  must  draw  upon 
the  sources  of  happiness  in  our  own  nature  and  in  the  world 
around.  It  is  reason's  ungracious  way  to  show  us  the 
realities  of  life  in  the  mass,  and  even  in  their  darker 
aspects  ;  it  is  aestheticism  that  turns  their  bright  side  to 
us.  Absolute  ugliness  does  not  exist,  any  more  than  abso- 
lute beauty,  and  a  careful  analysis  detects  an  element  of 
beauty  and  love  in  everything.  The  quest  for  this  element 
is  women's  work.  In  moulding  us  into  beings  sensitive  to  the 
least  manifestation  of  happiness,  they  restore  us  to  health. 

Their  first  duty  is  to  exhibit  in  themselves  every  love- 
able  quality,  physical  and  moral ;  for  platonism  is  not  the 
art  of  loving,  but  the  art  of  guiding  men  towards  happiness 
through  love.  Their  second  duty  is  to  make  good  use  of 
the  elements  at  their  disposal,  and  force  life  to  yield  the 
very  pith  and  essence  of  the  Beautiful.  Or  we  may  liken 
them  to  conductors  of  orchestras,  who  draw  unexpected 
tones  out  of  space.  How  noble,  how  difficult  is  the  task ! 
Surely  there  is  enough  in  it  to  fill  a  lifetime  !  What  intelli- 
gence, what  knowledge,  what  skill,  even  to  charming 
sympathetic  accents  from  a  stone,  are  needed  !  Platonism 
would  be  narrow  and  inadequate  indeed — would  be  indis- 
tinguishable from  the  most  hackneyed  sentiments — if  it 
were  satisfied  with  the  triumph  of  feminine  coquetry,  and 
did  not  extend  its  mission  to  the  whole  of  nature. 

To  render  themselves  beautiful  and  admirable,  therefore, 
women  will  have  to  make  the  most  of  their  resources. 
Whatever  their  occupation,  they  can  always  mingle  with  it 
something  of  the  ideal,  or  turn  it  to  the  glory  of  their  sex, 

194 


THE  MISSION  OF  BEAUTY  195 

* 

even  if  it  is  a  mere  matter  of  dining  or  of  walking  in  a 
meadow ;  how  much  more  so  if  it  is  a  question  of  the  mani- 
fold usages  of  social  life,  and  more  especially  of  its  intellectual 
occupations  !  Through  their  fostering  care  all  things  should 
become  imbued  with  a  sentiment  of  peace  and  love,  and  tend 
in  common  towards  happiness.    That  iswhere  their  talent  lies. 

Clearly  the  method  employed  will  vary  according  to 
circumstances,  situation,  possibilities,  temperaments.  Diffe- 
rent women  will  pursue  different  aims,  and  avail  themselves, 
of  different  weapons ;  but,  in  the  long  run, :  none  is  neglected.. 
While  therefore  we  cannot  hope  to  produce  a  thoroughly 
accurate  picture,  we  shall  pass  in  review  the  principal  cir- 
cumstances which  provide  a  lady  with  her  means  of  action, 
starting  in  logical  order  with  the  material  and  proceeding 
to  the  intellectual  facts. 

In  the  material  universe,  it  is  woman's  capital  duty  to- 
possess  what  pleases  men  ;  for  here  we  are  entering  a  purely 
practical  field,  and  the  quest  of  the  ideal  is  of  much  less- 
moment  than  the  skilful  dressing  of  the  hook  ! 

Physical  beauty  is  not  an  indispensable  condition  of 
pleasing;  on  the  contrary  indeed,  a  certain  homely  plain- 
ness does  not  come  amiss,  platonically  speaking.  If  many 
of  the  celebrated  women  whom  we  know  only  in  their 
portraits  were  to  come  to  life  again,  perhaps  we  could  not 
resist  their  fascinations ;  but  they  are  dead,  and  to  us  they 
are  plain  ;  their  plainness  served  them  as  a  sort  of  lightning- 
conductor.  We  may  go  even  farther;  true  beauty  was 
held  suspect.  As  Anne  of  France  severely  says,  it  is  the  most 
prejudicial  and  least  valuable  grace  that  God  can  bestow  on 
a  woman,  especially  a  princess.  It  is  made  too  much  of; 
it  inevitably  jumbles  the  sentiments,  mixing  with  the  purest 
an  alloy  of  instability ;  there  is  always  a  risk  of  its  upsetting 
the  best-laid  schemes.  A  princess  acknowledged  as  a 
beauty  cannot  choose  her  servitors ;  she  knows  neither  how 
far  they  will  go  nor  perhaps  how  far  she  will  go  herself. 
She  seats  her  empire  on  very  precarious  foundations,  since 
the  less  sensual  love  is,  the  longer  it  endures.  In  fine, 
women  are  what  they  are,  and  it  is  impossible  to  ask  them 
to  change.  But  any  woman  who  knows  her  duty  may  be 
asked  to  practise  the  feminine  art,  and  this  art  is  called  charm. 

Many  men  do  not  know  the  meaning  of  the  word 
"charm";  they  speak  of  beauty  as  savants  or  as  grocers 


196       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

might,  not  as  faithful  worshippers.  If  you  pull  women  to 
pieces,  if  you  judge  them  as  you  would  a  yard  of  calico,  a 
donkey  or  a  slave,  you  will  see  naturally  but  a  form  of 
flesh ;  you  may  estimate  its  geometrical  dimensions,  count 
on  your  fingers  thirty  or  thirty-six  special  beauties  ;  if  you 
profess  an  intellectual  standpoint,  you  will  perhaps  go  so 
far  as  to  measure  the  cranium,  and  that  will  be  all.  You 
will  be  content  as  an  artist  to  produce  a  "semblance  of  life," 
by  dint  of  scrupulous  attention  to  detail ;  you  will  not  per- 
ceive what  it  is  that  speaks  to  us,  fascinates  us.  Charm  is 
not  expressed  in  terms  of  arithmetic  or  algebra :  it  is  an  art, 
perhaps  the  highest  of  all  arts,  because  more  than  any  other, 
more  even  than  poetry  or  music,  it  speaks  from  soul  to 
soul ;  it  is  a  sort  of  witchery,  a  woman's  knack,  as  it  were, 
of  enveloping  all  around  her  in  an  invisible  net.  It  is  not 
purely  intellectual,  but  avails  itself  of  physical  means  and 
disdains  everything  in  the  way  of  formulae.  The  Italians, 
adoring  this  delightful  art,  have  vainly  devoted  innumer- 
able and  often  very  prolix  writings  to  the  attempt  to  fathom 
it.  All  their  reasonings  are  condensed  in  this  vague  sent- 
ence of  Firenzuola :'  "A  beautiful  woman  is  one  who  is 
universally  pleasing";  and  Firenzuola  is  no  better  able  than 
the  rest  to  say  why  she  is  pleasing.  If  we  were  speaking  of 
a  good  housewife,  it  would  be  easy  to  catalogue  her  virtues: 
the  talents  of  a  managing  woman,  a  woman  who  can  look 
after  one's  health,  keep  the  books  and  train  the  children, 
have  often  been  computed.  Of  a  charming  woman,  never ! 
Each  one  has  her  own  secret.  And  yet  the  art  of  charming 
is  very  widespread.  To  that  art  the  Italian  women  owed 
their  positions  as  queens  of  the  world  (or,  to  satisfy  Mon- 
taigne, let  us  say  the  "  regents  ");  they  were  not  superior  to 
Frenchwomen  in  beauty  of  form  or  in  originality  of  soul, 
but  among  them  there  were  more  "  beautiful  women,"  that 
is  to  say,  captivating  women,  than  elsewhere.  They  were 
imbued  with  platonic  sweetness,  had  acquired  an  indescrib- 
able magnetism,  a  perfume  of  human  graciousness,  so  holy, 
so  all-pervading  that  it  seemed  to  purify  the  air  and  make 
the  world  a  temple  instead  of  a  hospital  :  like  the  precious 

1  [Poet  and  translator  (1493-1545),  friend  of  Aretino.  He  wrote  '  amorous 
discourses '  in  imitation  of  Boccaccio ;  comedies  in  imitation  of  Plautus ; 
a  translation  of  the  Golden  Asa  of  Apuleius ;  and  a  prose  work  on  the 
beauty  of  wemen.] 


THE  MISSION   OF   BEAUTY  197 

spikenard  poured  long  ago  upon  the  feet  of  the  Saviour,  all 
soiled  with  the  dust  of  the  world. 

Like  all  other  arts,  chann  is  a  gift  of  nature.  The  first 
rule  for  a  woman  is  to  know  herself  thoroughly,  so  that  she 
may  bring  her  individual  gifts  discreetly  into  play,  especially 
those  which  affect  the  man  she  has  in  view.  It  will  not 
do  to  let  her  art  appear.  A  woman's  charm  depends  upon 
her  acting  spontaneously,  even  though  imperfectly;  it  is 
impossible  to  insist  too  strongly  on  this  principle,  which 
of  itself  explains  the  evolution  of  women's  power  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  So  long  as  women  frankly  assert  their 
personality  in  their  actions,  taking  counsel  only  of  them- 
selves, their  power  never  ceases  to  grow,  and  produces 
excellent  results;  but  when,  whether  from  indifference, 
timidity,  the  instinct  of  submission,  or  a  mistaken  educa- 
tion, they  no  longer  see  in  platonism  anything  but  an  art  to 
learn,  a  lesson  to  rattle  off,  a  conventional  pose,  all  is  over ; 
men  of  real  virility  escape  their  influence,  and  deride  their 
charm  as  a  puerile  thing,  and  the  women  find  no  men  to 
govern  but  the  insignificant  herd  whom  they  do  not  care 
a  straw  for,  and  who  are  distinguished  one  from  another 
only  by  the  colour  of  their  pantaloons.  This  is  the  practical 
result  of  the  parallel  instituted  between  true  platonism 
and  the  platonism  of  convention,  between  Michelangelo 
and  Bembo,  between  the  vigorous  Anne  of  France,  who 
was  willing  to  assimilate  certain  delightful  principles  of 
the  new  spirit  so  long  as  no  sacrifice  of  character  or  caste 
was  involved,  and  the  amiable  Margaret  of  France,  who 
was  much  more  inclined  to  go  over  bag  and  baggage  to 
the  Italian  methods,  in  order  to  obtain  in  France  the  same 
results  as  in  Italy. 

Nevertheless,  apart  from  originality,  which  is  indispens- 
able, and  diversity,  which  is  essential,  it  is  possible  to- 
mention  some  elements  that  go  to  the  making  of  charm, 
consecrated,  apparently,  by  experience  or  tradition.  Of 
these,  some  are  physical,  some  intellectual ;  for  the  present 
we  shall  speak  only  of  the  former. 

Itis  ageneralrule(ifwe  mayspeak  of  rules)that  the  physical 
charm  of  a  woman  springs  entirely  from  whatever  accen- 
tuates her  feminine,  arch-feminine  character.  Thus  it  must 
above  all  express  the  completest,  most  absolute  sweetness. 

For  a  long  time  this  characteristic  sweetness  appeared  to 


198       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

spring  from  gracefulness  of  form  and  feature:  a  face  of 
aristocratic  oval ;  a  swan  neck,  a  wasp  waist ;  in  short  a 
general  effect  of  reed-like  slightness  and  fragility,  a  veritable 
mantel  ornament,  so  delicately  balanced  that  to  touch  it  was 
more  than  one  dared,  and  that  one  was  puzzled  how  so  frail 
a  thing  had  ever  managed  to  stand  on  such  tiny  feet,  to 
hold  out  such  a  poor  little  hand — a  virginal  figure  of  fifteen 
years.1  This  wonderfully  pure  ideal  persisted  in  Spain  ;  but 
in  Italy  one  of  the  first  signs  of  decadence  was  the  preference 
for  more  sensual  forms.  The  Florentines,  with  their  fastidious 
ideal  of  elegance,  were  almost  alone  in  resisting  the  current ; 
good  Firenzuola  did  not  yield  to  it  to  any  extent,  and 
at  most  there  was  at  Florence  a  small  section  in  favour 
of  muscle  and  robustness,  of  whom  Michelangelo  is  the 
representative.  But  at  Venice,  a  fine  opulence  of  flesh, 
luminous  and  warm,  wonderfully  substantial  and  soft,  "  full 
of  a  delicious  comfortableness,"  carried  all  before  it — a  beauty 
such  as  the  pagans  have  cele orated  in  their  lyrics  and  such 
as  the  East  adores :  nothing  seemed  more  charming. 

In  France,  the  national  spirit,  always  eclectic  and  vacillat- 
ing, was  neither  idealistic  nor  materialistic  enough  to  take 
Any  side  in  this  dispute. 

Autant  me  plaist  la  grassette, 
Comme  me  plaist  la  maigrette.2 
— Rontard. 

The  great  goddesses  who  ruled  and  dominated  the  classical 
epoch,  Madame  de  Chateaubriand,  Madame  de  Canaples,8 

1  Son  age  eatoit  d'envyron  les  quinze  ans, 
Qui  est  le  temps  que  desirent  amans. 
La  taille  en  fut  longue,  menue  et  droicte, 
Espaulle  platte,  et  par  les  flancs  estroicte. 

(Anne  de  Graville.) 
Toutes  les  nuyctz,  je  ne  pense  qu'en  celle 
Qui  a  le  corps  plus  gent  qu'une  pucelle. 

(Marot. ) 
[Her  age  was  fifteen,  as  I  guessed, 
The  age  that  pleases  lovers  best  ; 
Her  figure  long,  slim,  straight  as  arrow, 
Her  shoulders  broad,  her  haunches  narrow. 
I  lie  awake  o'  nights,  and  my  thoughts  are  sure  to  go 
To  the  maid  whose  body's  comelier  than  any  maid's  I  know.] 

■Is  she  plump,  or  is  she  lean? 
My  pleasure  is  the  same,  I  ween. 

'[Both  these  ladies  were  mistresses  of  Francis  I.] 


THE  MISSION  OF  BEAUTY  199 

Diana  of  Poitiers,  were  representatives  of  vigorous  stocks ; 
an  old  lusty  blood  coursed  visibly  enough  through  their 
veins ;  but  they  mastered  it  as  they  mastered  everj'thing, 
diluting  it  with  an  effeminacy  which  had,  however,  a  charm 
of  its  own. 

The  colour  of  the  hair  and  eyebrows  always  appeared  a 
characteristic  factor  in  a  woman's  expression ;  without  fair 
hair  there  was  no  charm.  According  to  a  twelfth-century 
chronicler,  the  sweet  Saint  Godeliva  of  Bruges  was  called  a 
"  horrid  crow  "  by  her  hag  of  a  stepmother  on  account  of 
her  dusky  hair ;  it  was  to  her  hair  indeed  that  she  owed  the 
tribulations  that  won  for  her  the  aureole  of  sainthood.  In 
all  probability  the  dukes  of  Burgundy,  when  they  created 
the  order  of  the  Golden  Fleece,  were  thinking  rather  of  the 
charming  women  with  heads  like  a  golden  harvest-field 
than  of  the  exploits  of  Jason.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine 
Botticelli  crowning  Spring  with  black,  or  Raphael  represent- 
ing his  Virgins  as  goddesses  of  night.  The  blonde  had  it 
all  her  own  way.  And  yet  even  in  this  matter  the  fastidious 
Florentines  did  not  commit  themselves,  and  had  something 
to  say  for  the  pretty  dainty  little  dark  heads  that  were  to 
be  met  in  the  fields  of  Umbria.  In  France  the  chestnut  locks 
which  set  off  so  many  charming  faces  were  greatly  admired. 

But  there  was  absolute  unanimity  in  favour  .of  a  soft 
complexion  of  creamy  white.  All  men,  whatever  their 
nationality,  whether  idealists  or  not — poets  and  aesthetes, 
dandies,  elegant  or  melancholy  men,  as  Firenzuola  and 
Tibaldeo1  called  themselves — united  in  praise  of  the  charm 
and  sweetness  of  the  lily  and  the  rose. 

As  for  the  eyes,  they  are  the  very  fount  of  charm ;  by 
their  aid  heart  is  linked  with  heart  in  exquisite  communings, 
in  them  the  soul  ranges  the  whole  compass  of  its  utterance. 
The  Italians  were  particularly  fond  of  speaking  eyes,  black, 
velvety,  dreamy  or  deep ;  the  French,  while  by  no  means 
insensible  to  the  charm  of  languorous  Creole  eyes,  much 
preferred  eyes  full  of  animation  and  intelligence,  and  these 
were  usually  of  a  light  grey  or  brownish  colour.  On  one 
point  they  were  almost  unanimous  :  a  French  girl  of  piquant 
expression  and  mobile  features,  all  sparkle  from  ej'es  to  lips, 
was  the  top  of  admiration. 

T[A  poet  (1463-1537)  who  having  lost  his  all  in  the  sack  of  Rome  was 
succoured  by  Bembo.     He  wrote  sonnets  and  pastorals.] 


198       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

spring  from  gracefulness  of  form  and  feature:  a  face  of 
aristocratic  oval;  a  swan  neck,  a  wasp  waist;  in  short  a 
general  effect  of  reed-like  slightness  and  fragility,  a  veritable 
mantel  ornament,  so  delicately  balanced  that  to  touch  it  was 
more  than  one  dared,  and  that  one  was  puzzled  how  so  frail 
a  thing  had  ever  managed  to  stand  on  such  tiny  feet,  to 
hold  out  such  a  poor  little  hand — a  virginal  figure  of  fifteen 
years.1  This  wonderfully  pure  ideal  persisted  in  Spain  ;  but 
in  Italy  one  of  the  first  signs  of  decadence  was  the  preference 
for  more  sensual  forms.  The  Florentines,  with  their  fastidious 
ideal  of  elegance,  were  almost  alone  in  resisting  the  current ; 
good  Firenzuola  did  not  yield  to  it  to  any  extent,  and 
at  most  there  was  at  Florence  a  small  section  in  favour 
of  muscle  and  robustness,  of  whom  Michelangelo  is  the 
representative.  But  at  Venice,  a  fine  opulence  of  flesh, 
luminous  and  warm,  wonderfully  substantial  and  soft,  "  full 
of  a  delicious  comfortableness,"  carried  all  before  it — a  beauty 
such  as  the  pagans  have  celebrated  in  their  lyrics  and  such 
as  the  East  adores :  nothing  seemed  more  charming. 

In  France,  the  national  spirit,  always  eclectic  and  vacillat- 
ing, was  neither  idealistic  nor  materialistic  enough  to  take 
.any  side  in  this  dispute. 

Autant  me  plaist  la  grassette, 
Comme  me  plaist  la  maigrette.2 
— Ronsard. 

The  great  goddesses  who  ruled  and  dominated  the  classical 
epoch,  Madame  de  Chateaubriand,  Madame  de  Canaples,8 

1  Son  age  estoit  d'envyron  les  quinze  ans, 
Qui  est  le  temps  que  desirent  amans. 
La  taille  en  fut  longue,  menue  et  droicte, 
Espaulle  platte,  et  par  les  flancs  estroicte. 

(Anne  de  Graville.) 
Toutes  les  nuyctz,  je  ne  pense  qu'en  celle 
Qui  a  le  corps  plus  gent  qu'une  pucelle. 

(Marot. ) 
[Her  age  was  fifteen,  as  I  guessed, 
The  age  that  pleases  lovers  best ; 
Her  figure  long,  slim,  straight  as  arrow, 
Her  shoulders  broad,  her  haunches  narrow. 
I  lie  awake  o'  nights,  and  my  thoughts  are  sure  to  go 
To  the  maid  whose  body's  comelier  than  any  maid's  I  know.] 

'Is  she  plump,  or  is  she  lean? 
My  pleasure  is  the  same,  I  ween. 

'[Both  these  ladies  were  mistresses  of  Francis  I.] 


THE  MISSION  OF  BEAUTY  199 

Diana  of  Poitiers,  were  representatives  of  vigorous  stocks ; 
an  old  lusty  blood  coursed  visibly  enough  through  their 
veins ;  but  they  mastered  it  as  they  mastered  everything, 
diluting  it  with  an  effeminacy  which  had,  however,  a  charm 
of  its  own. 

The  colour  of  the  hair  and  eyebrows  always  appeared  a 
characteristic  factor  in  a  woman's  expression ;  without  fair 
hair  there  was  no  charm.  According  to  a  twelfth-century 
chronicler,  the  sweet  Saint  Godeliva  of  Bruges  was  called  a 
"horrid  crow"  by  her  hag  of  a  stepmother  on  account  of 
her  dusky  hair ;  it  was  to  her  hair  indeed  that  she  owed  the 
tribulations  that  won  for  her  the  aureole  of  sainthood.  In 
all  probability  the  dukes  of  Burgundy,  when  they  created 
the  order  of  the  Golden  Fleece,  were  thinking  rather  of  the 
charming  women  with  heads  like  a  golden  harvest-field 
than  of  the  exploits  of  Jason.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine 
Botticelli  crowning  Spring  with  black,  or  Raphael  represent- 
ing his  Virgins  as  goddesses  of  night.  The  blonde  had  it 
all  her  own  way.  And  yet  even  in  this  matter  the  fastidious 
Florentines  did  not  commit  themselves,  and  had  something 
to  say  for  the  pretty  dainty  little  dark  heads  that  were  to 
be  met  in  the  fields  of  Umbria.  In  France  the  chestnut  locks 
which  set  off  so  many  charming  faces  were  greatly  admired. 

But  there  was  absolute  unanimity  in  favour  .of  a  soft 
complexion  of  creamy  white.  All  men,  whatever  their 
nationality,  whether  idealists  or  not — poets  and  aesthetes, 
dandies,  elegant  or  melancholy  men,  as  Firenzuola  and 
Tibaldeo1  called  themselves — united  in  praise  of  the  charm 
and  sweetness  of  the  lily  and  the  rose. 

As  for  the  eyes,  they  are  the  very  fount  of  charm ;  by 
their  aid  heart  is  linked  with  heart  in  exquisite  communings, 
in  them  the  soul  ranges  the  whole  compass  of  its  utterance. 
The  Italians  were  particularly  fond  of  speaking  eyes,  black, 
velvety,  dreamy  or  deep ;  the  French,  while  by  no  means 
insensible  to  the  charm  of  languorous  Creole  eyes,  much 
preferred  eyes  full  of  animation  and  intelligence,  and  these 
were  usually  of  a  light  grey  or  brownish  colour.  On  one 
point  they  were  almost  unanimous  :  a  French  girl  of  piquant 
expression  and  mobile  features,  all  sparkle  from  eyes  to  lips, 
was  the  top  of  admiration. 

*[A  poet  (1463-1537)  who  having  lost  his  all  in  the  sack  of  Rome  was 
succoured  by  Bembo.     He  wrote  sonnets  and  pastorals.  ] 


200       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Such  are  the  few  summary  and  exceedingly  vague 
notions  of  charm,  from  the  physical  point  of  view,  to 
which  women  could  look  for  inspiration. 

They  could  choose  among  these  various  characteristics,  or 
they  could  at  least  go  some  way  towards  them.  There  is 
no  mystic  virtue  in  the  advice ;  the  important  thing  is  to 
succeed ;  but  if  a  woman  lacks  any  one  of  the  recognised 
instruments  of  charm,  it  is  better  to  look  for  another  than 
to  attempt  the  impossible.  Women  have  been  known  to 
delight  men  merely  by  the  beauty  of  a  wide  intellectual 
brow :  Mademoiselle  de  Vieilleville's  charm  lay  in  a  sweet 
little  lisp,  and  the  fair  Chanteloup's  in  her  delicious  little 
mouth.  A  pretty  pout,  a  little  wanton  laugh,  lips  fine  and 
so  red  that  a  man  asks  himself  "  which  is  the  cherry  and 
which  is  the  mouth  ? "  the  carriage  of  the  body,  the  play  of 
the  features — all  these  and  many  other  things  may  become 
the  "fount  of  amorous  sweets."  All  that  is  necessary  is 
that  in  one  way  or  another  a  woman  should  enwrap  herself 
with  her  sweetness,  as  with  a  goddess's  veil. 

Leonardo  da  Vinci  sometimes  painted  good  housewives, 
frank  and  precise  in  countenance,  but  he  took  no  pleasure 
in  them ;  he  hardly  regarded  them  as  women :  a  bold  look, 
he  said,  only  suits  women  who  are  no  longer  women. 
Whenever  he  was  in  love  with  his  model  he  has  given  her 
a  modest  port,  one  arm  shielding  her  breast,  and  he  has  half 
submerged  her  in  a  kind  of  penumbra.  In  France  a  trim, 
sprightly,  noticeably  handsome  woman  was  obliged  to 
disguise  herself  in  an  air  of  languorous  affability.  The 
most  stony-hearted  of  Frenchmen  surrendered  to  "  a  sweet 
and  gentle  face,"  "  a  sweet  look,  a  sweet  bearing,  a  sweet 
countenance." 

Another  quality  which  idealists  regarded  as  conducive  to 
charm  was  a  certain  stiffness  and  reserve  of  manner. 
Woman,  like  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  was  to  be  worthy  of 
all  respect.  She  was  not  thought  the  worse  of  if,  like  a 
mimosa,  she  shrank  within  herself  when  the  sun's  raj^s  were 
no  longer  there  to  warm  her,  and  if  she  was  afraid  of  the 
dark.  The  woman  chary  of  her  smile  was  considered  a 
delightful  creature.  In  platonist  circles  they  would  scarcely 
even  admire  the  beauty  of  the  shoulders,  and  indeed  there 
were  no  longer  seen  flaunted  in  the  streets  or  churches; 
under  the  eyes  of  the  common  herd,  certain  liberties  in 


THE   MISSION   OF  BEAUTY  201 

costume,  from  time  immemorial  the  despair  of  preachers — 
low-cut  dresses,  like  that  of  good  Isabel  of  Bavaria,  whom 
the  monk  Jacques  Legrant  admonished  from  the  pulpit  for 
showing  everything  "  down  to  her  navel " :  robes  scalloped 
at  the  sides ;  long-pointed  shoes  so  much  in  the  way  that  a 
woman  had  to  lift  her  petticoats  very  high  to  be  able  to 
walk.  Castiglione  goes  into  raptures  about  the  simple  little 
velvet  boot  of  a  lady  who,  on  going  to  mass  one  morning, 
fancied  she  had  to  spring  lightly  across  a  brook.  Aretino, 
naturall}7  an  expert  in  such  a  matter,  declares  that  no  one 
has  a  greater  horror  of  a  gratuitous  display  of  her  charms 
than  a  courtesan !  Refinement  and  delicacy  seemed  to 
make  women  mo^  fastidious  and  more  shy,  because  they 
realised  their  value,  and  because  they  wished  to  be  loved, 
principally  at  least,  for  their  soul.  And  then  great  ladies, 
like  everyone  else,  come  in  time  to  the  verge  of  forty,  and 
their  taste  and  discretion  are  remarkable.  Persuaded  that 
perfection  is  always  rare  in  this  poor  world,  they  appreciate 
the  importance  of  a  good  appearance,  especially  in  a  blasd 
society,  and  they  are  not  unaware  how  much  they  owe  to 
the  skill  of  the  dressmaker. 

Here,  however,  there  arises  a  question  on  which  a  few 
words  must  be  said,  for  it  not  only  occupies  a  certain  place 
in  the  history  of  art,  but  it  commonly  leads  to  what  appears 
to  us  a  not  very  correct  estimate  of  the  aesthetic  role  of  the 
women  of  the  Renaissance  :  the  mistake  has  perhaps  been 
made  of  not  treating  it  as  seriously  as  it  deserves. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  sixteenth  century  displayed  an 
immoderate  fancy  for  Venuses,  delighting  in  them,  going 
into  ecstasies  over  them,  setting  them  here,  there  and 
everywhere  with  a  sort  of  intoxication, — like  a  man  issuing 
from  a  too  long  seclusion  into  fresh  air. 

It  must  indeed  be  confessed  that  the  grave,  austere  art  of 
the  Middle  Ages  had  erred  a  little  in  the  opposite  direction. 
The  influence  of  asceticism  had  generated  the  absurdly 
exaggerated  desire  to  put  out  of  sight  the  existence  of 
matter ;  artists  attenuated  corporeal  forms  until  on  their 
canvases  the  body  represented  merely  a  thought;  and  the 
raiment,  consequently,  in  which  the  body  was  delicately 
and  gracefully  draped,  served  as  vesture  to  this  thought, 
and  contributed,  so  to  speak,  to  immaterialise  it.  The 
influence  of  Greek  art  was  needed  to  effect  a  reversion  and 


204       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

than  anyone  else  had  ennobled  the  practice,  by  inscribing 
above  the  private  altar  of  the  popes  the  sublimest  and  most 
terrible  page  of  philosophy  ever  written  by  painter's  brush, 
he  was  specially  marked  out  for  attack.  Undoubtedly  he 
was  generally  recognised  as  the  responsible  enunciator  of 
this  new  principle  of  art,  and  it  is  a  clear  proof  of  the 
general  and  almost  unopposed  onslaught  on  him  that  the 
man  most  keenly  alive  to  the  drift  of  fashion,  Aretino, 
ventured  to  indulge  in  virulent  invective  against  him  upon 
this  subject.  After  the  Council  of  Trent,  a  veritable  crusade 
was  organised  with  the  noble  end  of  purging  the  churches 
of  too  lifelike  anatomies.  It  is  the  correct  thing,  in  the 
Joanne}  to  make  merry  at  the  expense  of  Pope  Paul  IV., 
dubbed  by  facetious  and  satirical  people  with  the  humil- 
iating sobriquet  of  the  "breeches  maker,"  because  he 
caused  some  veracious  but  really  unessential  details  in  the 
work  of  Michelangelo  to  be  timidly  covered  with  gauze, 
and  because  he  generously  presented  the  Hoty  Virgin  with 
the  dress  she  badty  wanted.  At  the  risk  of  incurring  the 
same  reproaches  and  of  becoming  a  by-word  to  guide-books 
past,  present,  and  future,  we  shall  here  confess  that  it  seems 
difficult  to  blame  him.  The  Last  Judgment,  though 
absolutely  pure  in  intention,  became  for  the  popes  quite  a 
stumbling-block  from  the  moment  they  entered  upon  the 
highly  legitimate  crusade  of  artistic  purification ;  when  in 
1573  Veronese  was  reproached  for  introducing  into  Last 
Sappers  details  little  tending  to  edification,  he  did  not  fail 
to  plead  the  example  of  the  Sistine  chapel.  There  is  not  a 
doubt  but  that  Calvin  would  have  shown  himself  much 
more  rigorous  than  Paul  IV. 

This  fascination  for  the  symphonic  harmonies  of  the  body 
was  not  only  an  anxiety  to  the  popes ;  it  distressed  also  the 
noble  women  who  wished  to  constitute  themselves  directors 
of  the  aesthetic  movement,  or  rather  to  become  the  very 
incarnation  of  beauty  and  love.  How  far  these  women, 
possessed  by  the  desire  of  securing  the  triumph  of  intel- 
lectual beauty,  found  themselves  compelled  to  make  certain 
concessions,  is  a  knotty  question  to  which,  as  it  seems  to  us, 
people  have  as  a  rule  furnished  somewhat  too  liberal 
answers.  So  far  as  the  men  were  concerned,  there  is  no 
possible  doubt  about  their  materialistic  tastes ;  we  have,  in 
'[The  French  Baedeker.] 


THE   MISSION   OF   BEAUTY  205 

a  by  no  means  small  number  of  records  and  anecdotes,  not 
to  speak  of  legends,  excellent  evidence  of  their  partiality  for 
lifelike  representations ;  they  demanded  them,  insisted  on 
having  them.  To  satisfy  them,  art  set  itself  to  picture  the 
unclothed ;  it  is  plain  that  the  platonist  women  had  no 
option  but  to  rise  in  revolt.  But  there  exist  some  Venuses, 
sculptured  or  painted,  to  which  the  artist  undoubtedly 
intended  to  give  the  spicy  attractiveness  of  portraits.  The 
figures  show  realistic  touches,  sometimes  positive  defor- 
mities ;  there  are  hump-backed  Venuses,  emaciated  Venuses, 
Venuses  of  mountainous  bulk.  They  invariably  wear 
beautiful  jewellery,  a  necklace,  for  example,  and  have  their 
little  dog  beside  them.  A  characteristic  detail  is  that  their 
hair  has  been  the  object  of  the  most  sedulous  painstaking ; 
it  is  a  masterly  scaffolding  of  crimped  and  waved  and  curled 
locks,  interspersed  with  jewels  in  such  a  way  as  to  make 
quite  clear  that  this  is  no  shy  woodland  nymph,  but  a 
woman  of  fashion,  a  woman  of  wealth,  and  even,  as  far  as 
that  can  be  shown,  of  birth  and  breeding.  This  class  of 
figure  is  admirably  represented  on  certain  of  Titian's 
canvases,  and  it  is  an  almost  immemorial  tradition  to  take 
them  as  the  painter  seems  to  intend,  namely,  as  portraits  of 
distinguished  women. 

Are  we  to  believe  that  the  religion  of  beauty,  in  purifying 
all  things,  led  women  to  adopt  so  extreme  a  custom  ?  We 
do  not  believe  it. 

That  would  have  been  the  total  failure  of  all  their  tactics, 
and  on  this  point  Plato  was  beaten  out  and  out.  Even 
in  that  coterie  at  Urbino  where  to  cultivate  the  purest 
platonism  was  the  delightful  occupation  of  life,  there  was 
a  general  smile  when  one  of  the  company,  smiling  dis- 
creetly himself,  reminded  them  of  the  Master's  recommenda- 
tion that  young  girls  should  practise  gymnastics  in  a 
costume  of  primitive  simplicity.  Ladies  were  not  at  all  en- 
amoured of  a  troglodytic  beauty,  and  anyone  who  fancied 
that  the  contemplation  of  Michelangelo's  or  Signorelli's 
works  would  turn  their  heads  would  have  been  greatly 
mistaken.  Julian  de'  Medici,  on  being  bantered  by  his 
friends  about  the  way  he  kept  his  fair  lady  out  of  sight, 
humorously  replies  :  "  Madam,  if  I  thought  her  beautiful  I 
would  show  her  without  her  finery,  as  Paris  insisted  on 
seeing  the  Three  Goddesses;    but  in  that  case  she  would 


206       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

need  to  be  attired  by  those  divinities  themselves;  and 
since  'tis  thought  she  is  pretty,  I  prefer  to  take  care  of 
her."1 

Platonist  women  felt  extreme  repugnance  for  anything 
resembling  publicity  or  vulgarisation — anything  likely  to 
come  under  the  common  gaze.  One  day,  at  a  ball,  a  young 
girl  seemed  a  prey  to  a  gloomy  pre-occupation  from  which 
nothing  could  rouse  her,  and  her  friends  wore  themselves  out 
in  vainly  conjecturing  the  reason.  At  last  they  got  the  key 
to  the  mystery:  "I  was  pondering,"  she  said,  "a  notion 
which  haunts  and  worries  me,  and  I  cannot  rid  my  heart  of 
it.  All  our  bodies  have  to  rise  at  Judgment  Day,  and  stand 
naked  before  the  judgment  seat  of  God,  and  I  cannot  bear 
the  distress  I  feel  at  the  thought  that  I  too  must  appear 
stark  naked."2 

It  cannot  be  denied,  of  course,  that  there  exists  a  certain 
number  of  Olympian  portraits.  But  these  have  nothing  to 
do  with  platonism,  and  further,  many  of  them  were  executed 
without  assistance  from  the  model. 

When  a  fashionable  woman  was  having  her  portrait 
painted,  she  did  not  pretend  to  patience,  and  would  not  sit. 
Proof  enough,  surely  !  The  artist  had  to  dash  off  a  hurried 
sketch  with  the  speed  of  a  present-day  photographer ;  the 
portrait  was  afterwards  worked  up  from  this  sketch  in  the 
studio,  and  a  succession  of  replicas  was  made  from  it.  It  is 
obvious  that,  getting  possession  of  fashionable  ladies'  heads 
in  this  way,  the  artists  had  every  opportunity  of  making  an 
ill  use  of  them,  and  supplying  them  with  a  costume  not 
bargained  for. 

Nowadays  the  fun  would  strike  us  as  in  rather  doubtful 
taste  ;  but  women  were  in  those  days  so  good-natured  and 
quick-witted  that  they  were  the  very  first  to  laugh  at  a 
sorry  jest  of  this  kind,  especially  if  their  personal  rank 
placed  them  above  suspicion,  and  still  more  if  the  portrait 
was  pretty  and  flattering. 

The  poet  Michel  d'Amboise  relates  how  he  gallantly 
offered  the  lady  he  idolised  a  portrait  of  herself  as  Venus. 
The  fair  damsel  looked  at  the  object  with  not  a  little 
pleasure ;  but  as  it  was  necessary  for  the  sake  of  principle 
to  reprimand  ihe  painter,  she  asked  him  where  he  had 
1  Castiglione,  Courtier  [(Tudor  Translations,  pp.  212,  213.)] 
8  Castiglione,  ibid.  p.  166. 


THE  MISSION   OF  BEAUTY  207 

managed  to  see  her  in  this  unusual  guise.     He  replied,  like 
a  genuine  courtier : 

J'ay  ta  fa9on  sceue  par  celuy 

Qui  est  a  toy  trop  plus  qu'il  n'est  a  luy.1 

"  Indeed  ! "  she  cried.  "  But  he  has  never  seen  me  either." 
We  owe  to  Ronsard,  to  whom  it  was  an  every-day  affair 
to  be  in  love,  a  description  of  the  lover's  method.  He  goes 
to  Janet  Clouet,2  and  requests  a  portrait  of  his  lady-love 
with  every  possible  charm.  Actually  he  has  seen  no  more 
of  her  than  the  graceful  oval  of  her  face  and  her  lithe  swan- 
neck,  but  that  does  not  prevent  his  describing  the  rest  of 
her,  and  bespeaking  for  the  portrait,  with  the  fullest  con- 
fidence, the  most  ravishing  details.  Clouet  sets  to  work 
there  and  then  on  a  very  charming  portrait,  which  will 
perhaps  not  be  a  very  striking  likeness  after  all. 

In  such  a  case  (from  a  sentiment  that  sufficiently  explains 
itself),  when  the  desire  was  to  do  homage  in  some  way  to 
the  presumptive  beauty  of  some  particular  lady,  the  most 
elementary  idea  of  discretion  prompted  the  artist  to  idealise 
her  features  a  little,  with  the  result  that,  the  features  being 
all  there  is  to  guide  us,  we  may  say  that  pictures  of  this  kind 
are  not,  strictly  speaking,  portraits ;  they  are  ideas,  arriere- 
pensees,  illusions  more  or  less  transparent.  If  tradition 
could  be  trusted,  how  many  portraits  should  we  have,  for 
instance,  of  Diana  of  Poitiers  ?  That  noble  lady  herself 
commissioned  a  fair  number  of  Dianas,  which  may  pass  for 
symbols,  for  the  glorification  of  her  name  and  work.  But, 
without  speaking  of  likenesses  that  are  more  than  doubtful, 
among  all  those  which  M.  Guiffrey  has  so  ably  catalogued, 
even  those  signed  by  the  most  illustrious  names,  we  do  not 
find  one  that  is  really  a  likeness.  This  defect  might  be  par- 
doned in  the  enamels,  even  those  signed  by  Leonard  Limosin,3 

1  "Thy  shape  !  Ah,  lady  !  'tis  to  me  well  known 

Through  him  whose  soul  is  thine,  no  more  his  own." 

2[Jean  Clouet  (1485-1545),  painter  to  Francis  I.  :  Janet  was  his  pet  name 
at  court.     The  reference  is  to  Ronsard's  lines — 

Peins-moy,  Janet,  peins-moy,  je  t'en  supplie, 
Sur  ce  tableau  les  beautes  de  ma  mie.] 

3 [A  master  in  portraiture  in  enamel  (1505-1575.)  As  many  as  1840  of  his 
works  are  known,  all  signed.     Specimens  may  be  seen  in  the  Louvre]. 


208       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

but  what  excuse  can  be  made  for  Jean  Goujon?1  Look 
for  instance  at  the  superb  Diana  in  the  Louvre:  done 
for  Anet,  it  triumphantly  challenged  all  heaven  to  surpass 
this  human  beauty,  synthetised  in  one  vigorous  woman, 
one  true  divinity,  monumental,  imposing,  of  commanding 
port  between  her  deer  and  her  hounds,  in  no  wise  voluptuous 
— a  remote  cousin  of  Michelangelo's  Eve,  though  degraded 
to  rule  over  forests  and  dogs  and  men.  Clearly  it  was  the 
chatelaine's  own  wish  to  glorify  her  creed,  her  ideal,  her 
patroness;  Jean  Goujon  has  deified  her,  sung  her  praises, 
interpreted  her;  and  yet  we  have  no  difficulty  in  recog- 
nising, from  certain  realistic  touches,  how  careful  he  is  to 
remind  us  that  he  was  celebrating  a  terrestrial  divinity. 
Is  this  a  portrait  ?  No.  It  is  enough  to  compare  this 
statue  with  the  authentic  likeness  of  Diana  of  Poitiers  on 
medallions.  If  Jean  Goujon  has  suggested  anything  of  the 
duchess's  beauty  in  the  head,  it  is  with  a  restraint  well 
calculated  to  baffle  us. 

Besides  the  portraits  on  canvas  or  in  marble  there  were 
also  others,  pen  portraits,  which  were  all  the  rage ;  and 
indeed  in  after  years  we  find  painters  complaining  of  the 
competition  thus  set  up  against  them  by  writers.  Though 
portraits  of  this  kind  were  necessarily  less  agitating,  people 
amused  themselves  by  seeking  physical  details  in  them ;  it 
was  a  feast  for  fine  wits  to  "  blazon,"  as  they  said,  this  or 
that  part  of  the  body,  and  it  may  be  that  certain  blasons? 
were  less  anonymous  than  they  seem.  This  special  art  has 
given  us  one  celebrated  portrait  which  has  not  ceased  to 
pique  the  curiosity  and  stimulate  the  sagacity  of  critics.  The 
philosopher  Nifo,  a  welcome  guest  in  the  house  of  the  young 
Joan  of  Aragon,  where  he  justified  his  presence  by  platoni- 
cally  courting  one  of  the  ladies-in-waiting,  wished  to  offer 
the  princess,  with  the  orthodox  dedication,  a  concise  treatise 
on  the  Beautiful,  and,  to  give  his  folio  a  certain  piquancy, 
he  inserted  in  it  a  portrait,  complete,  circumstantial,  ruth- 
less, a  study  in  pathology  and  anatomy,  of  all  the  endow- 
ments visible  and  invisible  of  the  young  lady  to  whom  the 

1  [Sculptor  tc  Francis  I.,  born  1515,  killed  in  the  St.  Bartholomew 
massacre,  Aug.  24,  1572.  His  statue  of  Diana  adorned  the  front  of  Diana 
of  Poitiers'  palatial  chateau  of  Anet.  Diana  is  represented  nude,  reclining 
upon  a  stag,  with  a  bow  in  her  hand,  and  surrounded  by  dogs.] 

2  [The  Mason  was  a  short  poem  celebrating  a  single  feature,  or  some  small 
possession  of  a  lady — an  eyebrow,  a  rose,  or  a  jewel,  for  instance.] 


THE  MISSION   OF  BEAUTY  209 

book  was  dedicated.  In  accepting  the  dedication,  the 
princess  took  upon  her  shoulders  the  responsibility  for  the 
work.  How  could  she  approve  of  this  dedication  ? — a 
remarkable  problem  which  commentators  have  endeavoured 
to  solve  in  every  way  but  the  right  one.  To  us,  at  any 
rate,  the  explanation  is  very  simple. 

All  the  critics  have  set  out  with  the  idea  that  Nifo  was 
rashly  indiscreet — a  position  difficult  enough  to  defend, 
since  a  liberty  officially  sanctioned  is  one  no  longer,  and,  if 
fault  it  was,  there  is  no  trace  of  absolution.  Now  what  was 
this  alleged  impudent  fellow?  A  fortunate  and  braggart 
lover,  say  some.  Can  we  conceive  this  old  simpleton,  for- 
sooth, hideous,  gouty,  a  mountain  of  flesh,  a  trifle  ridi- 
culous— who  was  overjoyed  at  courting  a  waiting-maid 
(who  laughed  in  her  sleeve  at  him) — boasting  thus  publicly 
of  a  conquest  over  the  impeccable  virtue  of  a  young  girl  of 
eighteen,  the  pearl  of  Italy !  That  would  have  been  no 
occasion  for  self-glorification  :  if  the  conquest  had  been 
really  his,  the  book  would  have  appeared  without  dedi- 
cation. 

Bayle  has  offered  another  explanation,  still  more  amusing  : 
he  has  simply  translated  by  "  medecin "  Nifo's  honorary 
appellation  of  "  Medici,"  and  founding  on  this  little  slip  of 
his,  he  takes  occasion  to  thunder  against  physicians  who 
abuse  the  confidence  of  their  fair  clients.  Even  so,  there 
would  still  have  been  no  liberty  !  Besides,  Nifo  was  not  a 
physician,  and  even  if  he  had  been,  he  would  not  have  found 
himself  much  further  on  ;  for  ladies,  as  we  have  shown, 
had  no  belief  in  the  neuter  sex  of  the  experts  who  tended 
them,  and  were  wonderfully  ready  to  regard  them  as 
veterinary  surgeons  rather  than  philosophers.  They  always 
drew  a  distinction  between  the  nude  and  the  unclothed ! 
Nifo  simply  ventured  on  the  same  pleasantry  as  Michel 
d'Amboise  and  Ronsard  and  all  the  second-rate  idealists, 
ready  to  pay  intellectual  adoration  to  a  woman,  and  yet 
susceptible  to  her  physical  charms — if  only  like  a  fish  on  a 
baited  hook.  He  ascribes  to  his  platonic  princess,  but  in  an 
aesthetic  and  abstract  sense,  a  beauty  well  calculated  to 
increase  the  number  of  her  courtiers  and  shed  lustre  upon 
her  philosophical  activity;  he  acts  like  a  good  lieutenant 
and  henchman,  rendering  her  a  philosophical  service  of 
which  she  cannot  but  show  herself  sensible.     Those   who 


210       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

have  the  patience  to  read  Nifo  will  find  later  in  his  book  an 
explicit  corrective,  the  strict  necessity  of  which,  however,  is 
by  no  means  obvious.  In  another  chapter,  to  remove  all 
misapprehension,  he  enlarges  with  fervour  on  the  moral 
virtues  of  Joan  of  Aragon,  putting  in  the  forefront  the 
two  which  seem  to  him  the  most  salient — the  beauty  which 
attracts,  enflames,  enraptures,  elevates  men  ;  the  modesty 
which  serves  her  as  breastplate  and  armour :  "  In  these  two 
points,"  he  cries,  "  you  eclipse  all  other  women  ! "  Poor 
Nifo !  Even  of  Phausina  Rhea,  the  waiting-maid  to  whom 
he  declared  his  love  without  any  beating  about  the  bush, 
he  knew  nothing  but  her  chignon  !  And  it  was  just  this 
perfect,  if  a  little  vexatious,  security  that  gave  such  a  zest 
to  his  pleasantry  about  the  princess. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  also,  a  century  of  masculine 
predominance,  people  fancied  they  were  deifying  men,  and 
especially  princes,  by  representing  them  nude.  La  Bruyere 
was  compelled  to  laugh  when  at  a  street  corner  he  contem- 
plated the  head  of  the  state,  the  grave  Louis  XIV.,  posed  as 
a  stone  Apollo.  The  idea  may  be  as  ridiculous  as  you 
please,  but  who  would  ever  dream  of  being  disturbed  at  the 
sight  ?  Did  La  Bruyere  himself  imagine  for  a  single 
moment  that  Louis  XIV.  had  taken  the  trouble  to  leave 
an  authentic  torso  to  posterity  ? 

Margaret  of  France,  however,  who  was  all  soul,  had  a 
singular  idea  in  regard  to  this  subject.  She  was  patently 
shocked  at  the  mere  thought  that  anyone  could  say  he  had 
admired  some  Italian  princess  or  duchess  lying  in  the  most 
voluptuous  simplicity  in  the  midst  of  a  beautiful  landscape, 
set  off  by  drapery  that  only  half  covers  her.  To  this 
fascinating,  but  as  she  thought  degrading,  spectacle  she 
resolved  to  oppose  another — the  spectacle  of  the  soul.  The 
project  occurred  to  her,  it  is  true,  at  an  age  when  all  her 
charms  but  those  of  the  soul  were  dead  ;  she  had  herself 
painted,  therefore,  like  the  others,  before  a  landscape  on 
which  the  sun  is  rising  (or  setting),  and  in  front  of  a  curtain  ; 
but  instead  of  lying  at  length,  she  stands  erect.  She  is  clothed 
in  her  shift,  transparent  enough  indeed,  but  carefully  fastened 
about  the  neck,  and,  to  give  greater  point  to  the  interpreta- 
tion, she  is  admiring  herself  in  a  little  hand-glass,  in  allusion 
no  doubt  to  her  book  The  Mirror  of  the  Soul.  She  wears 
neither  necklace  nor  jewels ;  a  few  ordinary  trinkets  negli- 


THE  MISSION  OF  BEAUTY  211 

gently  placed  on  her  toilet- table  alone  indicate  her  quality. 
Her  whole  body  in  its  tender  austerity  is  a  revelation  of  her 
soul.  And  the  moral  effect  of  this  representation  appeared 
so  lofty  that  this  little  portrait  was  treasured  in  the 
princess's  family  as  her  true  likeness,  the  portrait  at  once 
authentic  and  piously  esoteric.1  Margaret  thus  drew  from 
art  its  ethical  teaching,  and  gave  a  lesson  to  ladies  who  rely 
too  much  on  mere  beauty  of  form. 

Such  is,  we  believe,  the  key  to  the  enigma.  To  win  their 
triumph  platonist  women  do  not  fling  away  their  weapons, 
as  someone  has  wittily  said  ;  they  lay  them  by. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  the  second  half  of  the  century,  when' 
platonism  had  disappeared  along  with  feminism,  the  scruples 
of  the  women  underwent  considerable  modification.  A 
compromise  was  effected ;  the  body  was,  so  to  speak,  cut  in 
two.  The  lower  part  remained  inferior,  but  the  upper,  the 
bust  namely,  was  regarded  as  superior  and  of  a  beauty  that 
might  fitly  be  exhibited.  At  the  end  of  the  century  we 
have  portraits  of  great  ladies  conforming  to  this  new  fashion. 
Perhaps  also,  out  of  a  spirit  of  mischief,  people  amused 
themselves  by  distributing  under  this  form  portraits  of 
ladies  who  enjoyed  almost  a  public  reputation  for  beauty, 
such  as  Gabrielle  d'Estrees  and  her  sister.  The  more 
masculine  society  becomes,  the  more  do  women  become 
fleshly.  And  we  should  only  have  to  point  out  another 
instance  of  this  phenomenon  if  we  were  not  convinced  that 
the  fashion  of  which  we  speak  sprang  up  in  an  atmosphere 
of  semi-platonism.  Diana  of  Poitiers,  apparently,  was 
delighted  to  exhibit  her  bust,  and  indeed  it  is  this  peculiarity 
which  led  M.  Vitet  to  believe  that  he  recognised  her  in  a 
family  portrait  of  Henri  II.,  at  present  in  England,  which 
includes  all  the  royal  family,  namely,  Henri  II.,  Catherine, 
his  official  wife,  Diana,  spouse  of  his  heart,  and  his  children. 
We  have  not  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  this  portrait,  and 
consequently  cannot  verify  M.  Vitet's  conjecture.  But  we 
think  we  have  sufficiently  proved  that,  even  from  the 
purely  aesthetic  standpoint,  the   platonist   ladies  did   not 

1  This  portrait,  painted  by  an  Italian,  no  longer  exists,  but  an  excellent 
miniature  copy,  executed  in  Henri  IV. 's  time,  is  to  be  found  in  the  rare 
manuscript  known  as  the  Book  of  Hours  of  Catherine  de1  Medici.  The 
other  miniatures  in  this  manuscript  are  made  after  French  portraits,  and 
do  not  admit  of  so  extravagant  an  interpretation.  Louise  of  Savoy  \t 
represented  as  a  widow,  in  the  classical  severe  and  ungainly  costume. 


212      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

depart  from  the  practical  principles  of  conduct  they  deemed 
the  best  and  most  profitable  ;  the  solitary  example  of  Diana 
of  Poitiers,  who  cannot  be  cited  as  a  thorough  platonist, 
does  not  strike  us  as  sufficient  to  prove  the  contrary. 

It  is  true  that  sometimes  the  ladies  had  to  yield  to  the 
exigencies  of  their  time,  and  tolerate,  on  the  part  of  the 
men  about  them,  customs  and  a  style  of  talk  in  which  they 
could  take  no  pleasure.  They  had  to  do  so  or  risk  being 
neglected  and  causing  often  worse  evils. 

The  intimacies  of  family  life  sanctioned  in  those  days 
truly  astonishing  liberties.  Thus,  on  the  morning  of 
Innocents'  Day  in  December,  a  man  would  consider  himself 
entitled  to  surprise  in  her  bed  a  lady  of  the  family,  or  a 
woman  of  the  household  (generally  a  young  woman),  and 
to  administer  a  slap  with  the  open  hand,  which  was  called 
"giving  the  innocents."1 

In  one  of  the  stories  of  the  Heptameron,2  a  husband 
gravely  announces  to  his  wife  "  that  he  means  to  go  at 
daybreak  and  give  the  innocents  to  her  waiting-maid,  to 
teach  her  not  to  be  so  lazy,"  and  the  good  lady  is  blissfully 
unsuspicious. 

In  vain  did  the  women  most  liable  to  such  treatment 
have  recourse  to  all  sorts  of  subterfuges — sleeping  elsewhere 
that  night,  or  rising  at  dawn  ;  escape  was  almost  impossible. 
Margaret  of  France  knew  all  about  it ;  for  all  her  demure- 
ness,  Cle'ment  Marot  wrote  a  scrap  of  verse  expressly  to 
threaten  "  to  give  her  the  innocents  "  and  "  see  that  comely 
body."  Her  nephew  Charles  of  Orleans  made  merry  at  her 
expense  because,  u  having  risen  too  late  "  on  Innocents'  Day, 
he  impudently  made  up  for  it  next  day  with  his  poor  aunt 
and  another  lady:  "I  won't  tell  you  just  now,"  he  wrote, 
"all  that  I  saw."  His  letter  tells  a  good  deal  as  it  is.  It  is 
not  surprising  that  a  princess  habituated  to  such  buffooneries 
strove  at  least  to  raise  their  level  a  little. 

As  there  was  no  help  for  it  but  to  exercise  their  charm 
on  man  the  brute  by  such  proceedings,  the  women  dis- 
played neither  pedantry  nor  affectation.  Besides,  if  the 
sensualists  thought  only  of  the  body,  women  thought  only 
of  the  soul ;  and  here,  under  a  new  form,  we  again  trace  the 
idea  that  in  giving  heart  and  mind  and  soul  to  the  man  of 
her  choice  a  woman  had  really  given  him  all  that  was 
1  Night-dresses,  by  the  way,  were  not  yet  in  use.  2Tale  45. 


THE  MISSION  OF  BEAUTY  21$ 

dearest,  most  precious  to  her,  all  that  constituted  her 
personality,  and  that  the  rest  had  only  a  secondary  import- 
ance. She  had  lent  her  material  person  to  a  husband  who 
had  not  troubled  himself  about  fathoming  her  soul :  why 
then  should  she  think  of  refusing  favours  of  no  consequence 
to  the  man  who  had  really  gathered  the  early  blossom  of 
that  soul  ?  Just  as  the  most  trifling  familiarity  disgusted 
her  when  it  sprang  from  a  vulgar  material  motive  or  was 
forced,  so  the  greatest  seemed  to  her  legitimate  and  even 
pleasant  if  it  was  spontaneous,  if  it  consecrated  a  genuine 
affection.  The  lady  who,  while  taking  her  bath,  would 
have  thought  it  more  seemly  to  dismiss  her  maid,  did  not 
fear  to  receive  there  in  all  honour  a  visit  from  a  gentleman. 

Why  should  distinguished  ladies  have  deprived  them- 
selves, at  the  levee  they  held  on  rising  and  retiring,  of  the 
pleasure  of  an  intimate  bedside  conversation  with  their 
lover  ?  In  their  eyes  it  had  exquisite  advantages :  first,  the 
very  intimacy  of  the  conversation ;  then  the  intellectual 
and  emotional  relish  it  imparted  to  the  purely  physical 
operations  of  the  toilet;  finally,  for  the  favoured  visitor, 
there  was  the  tiny  reward  of  platonic  love,  the  little  personal 
token,  the  special  bond  which  no  one  else  had.  Margaret 
of  France  tells  us  explicitly  that  she  could  not  have  insulted 
a  man  of  position  and  a  friend  of  the  king,  like  Bonnivet, 
by  excluding  him  from  her  "  dressing  and  undressing  " ;  that, 
further,  there  was  no  harm  in  Bonnivet's  "taking  this 
opportunity  to  increase  his  affection,"1  seeing  that  platonic 
love  consists  precisely  in  loving  up  to  the  very  verge  of  the 
forbidden. 

In  short,  women  genuinely  platonic  used  their  physical 
beauty  as  a  first  means  of  developing  their  charm.  In  this 
respect  they  were  at  odds  with  the  mystics,  who  regarded 
the  body  as  a  negligible  quantity  and  an  encumbrance ;  but 
they  were  still  more  sharply  divided  from  the  sensualists. 
Their  idea  was  to  deify  the  body,  enshrine  it,  so  to  speak, 
and  glorify  it  as  the  vesture  of  the  soul,  the  servant  of  the 
heart.  Platonists  of  a  lofty  flight  pushed  this  idea  as  far  as 
possible:  Michelangelo  so  closely  identified  soul  and  bod}' 
as  not  even  to  admit  that  the  face  could  have  wrinkles 
when  the  soul  had  none ;  so  great  was  his  enthusiasm  for 
the  beauty  and  youthfulness  of  Vittoria  Colonna's  soul,  that 

1  Heptameron,  Tale  4. 


2H      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

he  had  that  strange  artist  fancy  never  to  perceive  a  line  on 
her  face.  He  himself,  when  a  scarred  and  battered 
octogenarian,  never  felt  withered  ;  to  his  last  day  he  never 
ceased  to  ascend  with  shining  countenance  the  altar  of  the 
Beautiful,  like  those  priests  who  bow  hoary  heads  before 
the  altar  of  the  Eternal  Beauty,  the  Eternal  Sacrifice,  as 
they  invoke  "  the  God  who  rejoiced  their  youth."  He  has 
sometimes  been  twitted  with  having  represented  the  Virgin 
as  a  woman  of  thirty,  even  after  the  death  of  Christ;  he  did 
so,  it  is  true,  and  to  him  nothing  appeared  more  natural. 
To  him  such  a  woman  was  always  thirty.  On  this  point 
Anne  of  France  did  not  quite  agree  with  him  ;  it  was  one  of 
her  favourite  maxims  that  a  woman  had  much  better  accept 
the  inevitable  with  a  stout  heart ;  conceal  nothing,  dress  to 
suit  her  age,  and  persuade  herself  that  wisdom  is  worth  as 
much  as  beauty.  But  Margaret  of  France  could  not  bring 
herself  to  believe  that  a  few  marks  of  physical  deterioration 
dim  the  radiance  of  a  woman's  moral  beauty  or  impair  her 
charm.  That  such  is  not  the  case  was  the  assured  con- 
viction of  these  noble  princesses.  Unhappily  it  was  not  easy 
to  persuade  men  so.  La  Rochefoucauld  retorts :  "  There 
are  few  women  whose  worth  survives  their  beauty."  To 
men  a  woman  no  longer  exists  if  she  can  say  :  "  When  I 
was  younger";  every  possible  defect  is  then  laid  to  her 
charge;  she  is  found  to  be  ugly,  jealous,  washed  out, 
viperous.  Wisdom  may  be  worth  as  much  as  beauty,  but 
what  can  she  do  with  her  wisdom  ?  In  Italy  a  woman  was 
reckoned  to  have  reached  the  wisdom  stage  at  thirty,  and 
Anne  of  France  only  consented  as  a  great  favour  to  allow 
her  another  ten  years. 

Apart  from  any  sort  of  notion  of  coquetry,  it  was  therefore 
of  the  greatest  importance  to  a  woman,  from  a  mere  senti- 
ment of  her  duty  and  her  mission,  never  to  be  forty ;  the 
theory  of  charm  would  not  have  been  complete  without  the 
addition  of  the  science  of  never  growing  old. 

This  accessory  science  was,  so  to  speak,  a  traced  copy  of 
that  of  love  ;  it  also  had  its  two  schools :  the  school  of  truth 
and  candour,  the  "  honest  skill "  which  consists  in  keeping  old 
a^e  at  bay  ;  and  the  school  of  cleverness  and  subtlety,  which 
seeks  to  recover  the  lost  youth,  to  employ  a  little  trickery, 
to  repair  time's  ravages — "  a  perpetual  optical  illusion,"  as 
Erasmus  calls  it. 


THE   MISSION   OF   BEAUTY  215 

The  first  demanded  much  forethought  and  prudence. 
From  the  earliest  years  of  wedlock,  with  no  immediate 
cause  for  alarm,  it  was  an  unremitting  mortal  struggle 
against  a  foe  as  yet  imaginary.  The  wife  found  her  weapons 
in  solemn  tomes  and  in  the  prescriptions  she  herself  had 
collected.  A  firm  opposition  to  her  husband  formed  part  of 
her  scheme.  As  to  special  modes  of  treatment,  they  com- 
prised aromatic  baths,  massage,  and  so  forth,  means  which 
were  very  restrictive  and  mundane  and  tiresome,  but 
wonderfully  effective. 

A  lady  of  that  period  could  write  in  all  pride  and  truth- 
fulness, "Women  remain  almost  always  young."  There 
were  some  who,  when  close  upon  seventy,  still  merited  the 
good  opinion  of  connoisseurs. 

Others  allowed  themselves  to  be  lulled  asleep  in  the  joy 
of  youth,  and  only  awoke  under  the  stroke  of  some  sharp 
warning;  but  then  they  sprang  erect  to  their  full  height 
like  a  wounded  tiger,  and  there  was  no  act  of  unquenchable 
courage  they  did  not  accomplish.  They  had  their  teeth 
drawn,  their  skin  scraped  till  it  bled,  they  reduced  their 
colour  by  dint  of  gulping  down  sand  or  cinders.  They  were 
heroines  of  unselfishness ! 

But  if,  alas  !  decay  proved  in  the  end  irresistible,  and  they 
had  to  resort  to  sham,  how  disastrous  was  the  result ! 
Around  a  made-up  face  ill-natured  folk  saw  nothing  but 
shams — sham  tapestry,  sham  bronzes,  sham  conversation ; 
art  and  platonism  alike  were  banished : 

Ostez  luy  le  fard  et  le  vice, 
Vous  luy  ostez  Fame  et  le  corps.1 

— Ronsard. 

The  dressing-room  became  like  a  universal  factory  ot 
pinchbeck.  On  the  door  might  have  been  written  the 
dictum,  in  general  so  utterly  false,  of  Cennino  Cennini : 2 
"  Art  consists  in  creating,  or  at  least  in  persuading  men  that 
that  which  is  not,  is."     Let  us  drop  the  subject. 

It  is  evident,  on  the   contrary,  that  the  honest  art  of 

1  Washed  of  her  paint,  of  her  vices  bereft, 
Body  and  soul  there  is  nought  of  her  left. 

a[A  painter  of  the  Florentine  school  (died  1440)  about  whom  nothing  is 
known  but  a  treatise  on  painting  discovered  in  1820,  and  some  frescoes 
%t  Volaterra.] 


216      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

dressing  played  an  important  part  in  practical  platonism,  so 
long  as  it  was  not  carried  too  far. 

Since  women  were  messengers  of  joy  to  the  world,  it 
followed  that  this  mission  must  be  declared  by  outward 
signs.  What  more  natural  than  to  give  a  princess  a  magni- 
ficent trousseau  !  It  was  not  a  luxury,  it  was  the  implement 
of  her  profession.  Anne  of  France  was  sure  that  simplicity 
had  been  formerly  pushed  too  far:  everyone,  she  said,  ought 
to  maintain  his  rank  and  perform  his  duty  in  it ;  the  world 
has  a  right  to  what  belongs  to  it,  that  is,  to  everything 
save  a  woman's  heart :  to  neglect  to  study  appearances,  to 
cultivate  false  simplicity,  is  to  commit  an  "  unseemly  and 
most  dishonest "  act.     To  dress  must  be  considered  a  duty. 

A  simple  little  "  mirror  of  the  soul,"  like  that  of  Margaret 
of  France,  was  not  sufficient  for  an  apostle  of  beauty. 
Mirrors  of  every  kind  and  style,  hollow  or  pyramidal  like 
factory  chimneys,  circular,  angular,  in  columns  or  spirals, 
rightly  absorbed  her  attention  every  morning  and  gave  her 
a  philosophical  and  serious  conception  of  her  person.  It 
is  not  at  all  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  lady  whose 
appearance  was  to  thrill  the  world  should  begin  by  setting  all 
this  machinery  in  motion. 

The  care  of  the  complexion,  and  especially  of  the  hands, 
naturally  took  some  time  to  begin  with,  not  to  speak  of 
hygienic  attentions.  A  delicate  little  touch  with  the  brush 
on  the  face  is  quickly  given,  but  it  demands  wonderful  skill: 
it  is  nothing,  and  it  is  all. 

But  the  hair  required  an  exemplary  patience.  Remember 
what  we  have  said  about  the  infallible  charm  of  light  hair. 
At  Venice  Veronese  never  met  a  brunette !  When  a 
brunette  was  mentioned  everybody  understood  that  she  was 
a  woman  who  had  given  up  dyeing  and  all  pretensions  to 
beauty !  That  is  why  the  Roman  ladies,  whom  Tertullian 
reproached  with  flaunting  "  barbarous  colours,"  and  why  our 
modern  artists  in  hair-dressing,  have  never  discovered  any 
more  beautifully  effective  recipes  for  golden  tresses  than 
those  furnished  by  Marinello1  or  Cennini  to  many  a  convinced 
devotee  of  platonism.  The  Venetian  blonde,  with  her 
beautiful,  glossy,  golden-brown  locks,  enjoys  even  to-day  a 
renown  so  much  the  more  legitimate  in  that  Nature  has 

1  [Author  of  Gli  ornamenli  delle  donne  (the  ornaments  of  ladies),  published 
at  Venice  in  1574.] 


THE  MISSION   OF  BEAUTY  217 

never  succeeded  in  imitating  her. — When  the  hair  had 
received  its  golden  hue,  it  was  spread  at  length  in  the 
sunlight  to  dry,  and  then  began  the  real  operation  of  the 
day — the  grand  masterly  operation  of  hair-dressing. 

In  Fraflce,  singular  customs  in  regard  to  this  matter  had 
long  prevailed.  A  lady  would  run  a  comb  through  her 
hair,  probably  quite  perfunctorily,  slip  on  a  hood,  which  she 
would  keep  on  the  whole  day,  and  trip  off  to  Mass.  This 
was  still  common  as  late  as  Anne  of  Brittany's  time :  that 
good  queen  herself  was  faithful  to  the  hood  to  her  dying 
day. 

By  Heaven's  favour,  Mary  of  England  brought  Louis  XII. 
beautiful  fair  locks,  quite  genuine  too,  and  the  fashion  of 
wearing  hats.  Then,  despite  the  invectives  of  a  few  insig- 
nificant people  like  the  poet  Coquillart,  the  feminine 
head-dress  attained  altitudes  more  and  more  complicated : 
crimpings  came  in,  and  curling  irons,  paddings  of  false  hair, 
huge  coils  stuck  with  jewels  in  the  Italian  fashion.  The 
quest  of  intellectual  charm  displayed  itself  in  some  ladies 
by  an  artificial  broadening  of  the  brow ;  to  become  philo- 
sophic, it  sufficed  slightly  to  shave  off  the  hair  in  front  and 
pile  it  up  high  behind.  The  hair-dressers,  who  had  now 
become  men  of  substance  and  repute,  lengthened  their  show- 
cases, and  invented  those  charming  wooden  heads  which  we 
have  not  ceased  to  admire. 

That  the  hair-dressing  operation  lasted  three  hours  need 
not  surprise  us;  but  how  mortally  tedious  these  hours 
would  have  appeared  without  the  help  of  conversation ! 
The  fair  patient  settled  herself  accordingly,  garbed  in  a 
chemisette  of  fine  linen,  cut  pretty  low  at  the  neck  and  in 
no  way  impeding  her  movements ;  and  that  was  the  hour 
when  she  showed  her  heart  to  her  friends. 

She  had  then  only  to  dress  herself,  that  is,  to  put  on  a 
wide-sleeved  cloak  of  damask,  with  a  very  low,  square- 
shaped  opening  in  which  the  waiting-women  slipped  a 
plastron,  usually  red ;  this  they  laced  with  care  so  as  to  fit 
the  figure  exactly ;  if  necessary  they  inserted  an  artificial 
bust,  and  remorselessly  tightened  the  waist. 

In  the  great  old-world  houses,  the  last  of  these  evolutions 
was  superintended  by  the  master  of  the  robes  in  person. 
Saluting  with  a  low  bow,  he  announced  the  costume  for  the 
day.      The   serving   maids,  aided   by  the   squires,    busied 


218      THE   WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

themselves  about  the  lady,  and  packed  her  into  a  doughty 
accoutrement  of  crimson  and  cloth  of  gold,  a  sort  of  clumsy 
casing,  a  veritable  strait-jacket,  treacherously  supported 
since  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century  by  busks  or  whale- 
bones, the  furtive  origin  of  the  corset.  Around  hef*neck  was 
thrown  a  necklace  of  gold,  rubies,  emeralds  or  diamonds, 
and  on  her  head  was  set  a  sort  of  tiara. 

Not  one  of  these  details  is  unimportant,  since  the  whole 
performance  had  a  lofty  aim.  And  this  is  just  the  oppor- 
tunity we  have  been  waiting  for  to  judge  the  women;  or 
rather,  their  dress  passes  judgment  upon  them.  Will  they, 
we  ask,  have  the  courage  to  make  their  clothing  expressive 
of  their  own  individuality,  to  render  their  garments  in  some 
sort  living  and  personal,  or  will  they,  with  mere  vulgar 
coquetry,  copy  and  wear  the  costume  that  may  be  seen 
trailing  in  any  street?  The  courage  to  indulge  an  indi- 
vidual taste  in  dress  seems  a  thing  of  no  consequence ;  it 
is,  really,  a  great  and  a  rare  virtue ;  it  stamps  a  woman  at 
once,  shows  if  she  has  a  soul  above  her  tailor,  if  she  has 
self-knowledge,  if  she  reflects,  if  she  has  a  feeling  for  art,  if 
she  is  determined  to  show  the  world  her  own  intelligence, 
her  own  beauty.  Hands  all  round  for  liberty  and  truth ! 
Anne  of  France  and  many  others  rebelled  against  the  craze 
for  a  slim  figure,  stifling  in  summer,  freezing  in  winter, 
regardless  of  the  claims  of  physical  health,  and  even  seeking 
to  conceal  the  signs  of  motherhood.  How  they  wished  that 
aestheticism  would  lead  them  back  to  the  Greek  art,  that 
is  to  say,  to  wide  flowing  garments,  dignified,  comfortable, 
healthy,  elegant!  Or,  as  Louise  Labe'1  poetically  besought, 
that  women,  instead  of  fastening  themselves  in  a  strait- 
jacket,  would  condescend  to  resemble  a  leaf-cone,  which 
opens  spontaneously  to  bear  its  fruit !  But  no ;  the  only 
approach  they  made  to  Greek  art  was  that  they  sought  to 
indicate  the  lines  of  the  figure  through  close-fitting  casings, 
but  the  casings  were  whalebone  and  artificial.  Health,  even 
life  itself,  was  of  no  account ;  to  graces  which,  however  im- 
perfect, had  all  the  attractions  of  naturalness  they  preferred 
a  stuffed  and  padded  ideal.  For  alas!  with  the  majority 
of  women,  a  dialogue  of  Plato  could  not  hold  a  candle  to  a 
conversation  with  a  dressmaker.  Fashion  was  omnipotent ; 
under  Louis  XII.  there  was  nothing  but  high-starched  neck- 
J[A  poetess  of  Lyons,  author  of  some  remarkable  sonnets.] 


THE  MISSION   OF  BEAUTY  219 

ruffs ;  under  Francis  I.  nothing  but  low-necked  dresses  cut 
square  in  front,  and  boldly  gored  to  a  point  behind. 

The  philosophic  spirit,  untrammelled  by  physical  barriers, 
manifested  itself  in  the  internationalisation  of  fashions. 

It  was  known  throughout  western  Europe  that  a  fashion 
adopted  by  Isabella  of  Mantua  was  one  to  be  followed,  and 
that  the  ladies  of  Paris  were  adepts  in  matching  bright 
colours,  and  ridiculously  concealed  their  faces  under  thick 
veils.  It  was  the  acme  of  good  style  to  dress  one  day  like 
a  Frenchwoman,  the  next  like  a  German,  Italian  or  Greek. 

The  platonists  somewhat  resented  this  vulgar  application 
of  their  ideas ;  that  was  not  their  conception  of  cosmopoli- 
tanism. To  weld  the  minds  of  men,  to  introduce  into  men's 
hearts  far  and  wide  the  truly  refining  leaven  of  affection, 
fraternal  concord  and  tenderness,  by  means  of  the  common 
love  of  the  beautiful — that  they  could  applaud.  But  mas- 
querades like  these — what  a  mockery !  In  this  matter, 
however,  their  authority  was  ineffectual ;  a  stronger  was 
required.  Francis  I.  knit  his  brows  when  Spanish  mantillas 
made  their  appearance  at  his  court ;  he  had  his  own  reasons 
for  not  being  fond  of  them.  He  said  that  he  believed  him- 
self among  a  rout  of  devils.  This  one  saying  accomplished 
what  no  arguments  would  ever  have  succeeded  in  doing : 
the  Spanish  frippery  was  packed  away  in  the  wardrobes 
until  the  political  sky  changed. 

Nevertheless,  the  intellectual  preoccupation  made  its 
way,  and  people  were  willing  to  pay  regard,  up  to  a 
certain  point,  to  Plato's  principle  that  the  soul  rather  than 
the  body  is  to  be  clothed :  in  other  words  they  proclaimed 
a  correlation  between  the  colour  of  the  petticoats  and  the 
state  of  the  soul.  Everybody  knew  that  there  are  physical 
harmonies  which  hold  absolutely ;  that  sober  tints  suit  the 
pale,  dull  colours  people  of  bilious  complexion,  and  bright 
tones  faces  inclined  to  ruddiness.  But  people  rarely  thought 
— they  did  not  trouble  to  think — that  there  might  be  for 
souls  a  similar  harmony,  much  loftier,  of  much  greater 
importance,  and  much  more  necessary  to  observe ;  for  the 
complexion  may  be  improved  by  a  touch  of  the  paint-brush, 
while  the  soul  must  be  kept  as  it  is.  M.  Jules  Lemaitre, 
whose  genius  is  thoroughly  French  and  whose  opinion  it  is 
always  a  pleasure  to  quote  in  matters  of  good  sense,  has  in 
our  own  time  this  quaint  idea:    "Our  fathers,  who  wore 


220      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

lace  and  feathers,  coats  red,  blue,  dove-coloured,  apple-green, 
and  soft-hued  lilac,  could  not  but  feel  more  disposed  to  joy, 
seeing  each  other  blooming  like  flower-beds.  If  fashion 
should  some  day  make  us  walk  the  streets  in  purple  silks, 
we  should  forthwith  be  rescued  from  doubt  and  despair." 

That  is  philosophically  true.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
we  cannot  isolate  ourselves ;  we  are  dependent  in  a  high 
degree  on  the  world  around  us.  The  inward  joy  we  seek  to 
create  needs  an  external  joy  for  its  support;  the  sun,  the 
blue  sky,  the  luxuriance  of  flowers,  the  clearness  of  the  air, 
the  boundless  gaiety  and  infinite  cordiality  of  Nature  quicken 
and  penetrate  us ;  a  grey  sky  and  a  dull  horizon  will  never 
kindle  glowing  reflections  in  our  soul. 

It  is  needful  and  right  that  men,  and  above  all  women, 
should  display  an  infectious  joy  and  vitality  also,  that  we 
should  not  have  to  puzzle  out  the  real  person  under  the 
tasteless  guise  of  a  vulgar  fashion-plate,  cut  from  a  price 
list  and  flung  over  the  shoulders.  Everyone  should  make 
his  dress  a  palpable  expression  of  his  life  and  joy,  like  the 
flowers  and  birds  and  fruits.  The  Catholic  religion  in- 
tuitively seized  on  this  profound  truth ;  it  retained  and 
developed,  with  the  pageantry  of  its  ceremonies,  the  gold- 
embroidered  copes  flashing  with  sombre  brilliance,  and  all 
this  red  and  white  and  blue  the  purpose  of  which  is  to  make 
us  forget  that  these  celebrants  singing  as  they  move  are 
men,  and  to  represent  them  to  us  as  the  very  flower  of  our 
ideas,  as  the  essence  of  our  tenderest  prayers  and  affections. 
Of  this  admirable  demand  for  the  embellishment  of  life  we 
have  preserved  only  one  melancholy  symbol,  mourning. 
Men,  with  their  customary  suits  of  solemn  black,  may  be 
said  to  carry  everywhere  with  them  the  idea  of  disenchant- 
ment, of  the  awful  paltriness  and  the  perpetual  mournfulness 
of  the  soul :  there  is  nothing  of  a  man  about  them ;  they  go 
about  the  streets  like  the  scattered  parts  of  one  huge  machine. 

And  this  self-abnegation  has  nothing  to  do  with  material 
questions  of  comfort  or  economy ;  there  is  no  woman  so  poor 
that  she  cannot,  if  she  wishes,  rise  above  her  wretchedness 
by  means  of  these  external  symbols.  Such  at  least  was  the 
opinion  of  the  sixteenth-century  women.  To  them  every 
colour  spoke  of  the  soul  and  to  the  soul ;  it  was  the  ensign 
of  one's  spiritual  fatherland,  or,  to  use  a  modern  metaphor,  a 
railway  signal-light ;  white,  the  line  is  clear !   it  signifies 


THE  MISSION   OF  BEAUTY  221 

a  heart  free  as  air,  a  soul  unappropriated  or  at  any  rate 
overflowing  with  youthfulness ;  green,  it  is  springtime  with 
the  soul,  in  the  full  vigour  of  sweet  acknowledged  hopes ; 
red,  an  utter  despair !  The  cloth  of  gold,  the  golden  jewels 
then  so  much  in  vogue,  represented  the  rich  glow  of  sunlight, 
the  spacious  joy  of  life  !  Whoever  wished  might  approach 
aud  find  warmth  and  gladness.  Celestial  blue  meant  to  the 
Italians  soft  ethereal  happiness ;  to  the  French,  a  tender  and 
fortunate  love.  Black  was  regarded  as  melancholy :  yet  this 
colour,  incapable  of  fading,  symbolised  constancy,  firmness, 
and  had  its  friends  in  consequence.  Why  restrict  it  to  mourn- 
ing, as  though  our  feelings  for  our  dead  are  alone  eternal  ? 
Margaret,  who  loved  and  encouraged  the  use  of  black, 
protests : 

Le  noir,  souvent,  se  porte  pour  plaisir, 

Et  plus  souvent  que  pour  peine  et  tourment.1 

However,  people  generally  preferred  not  to  take  their 
pleasure  in  black.  Rabelais  allowed  in  the  Abbey  of 
Thelema  none  but  brilliant  costumes :  he  wished  to  have 
one  colour  a  day,  and  that  the  days  should  be  told  off  as 
white,  pink,  yellow,  red,  green — never  black. 

Thus  the  sartorial  art,  in  spite  of  little  encouragement, 
itself  came  at  last  to  exhale  a  perfume  of  life  and  the  ideal. 
Unhappily  it  had  a  cruel,  powerful  foe,  which  was  incessantly 
to  check  its  aspirations  and  keep  it  in  perpetual  bondage  to 
materialism.  This  foe  was  the  vulgar  passion  for  sumptuous 
display,  the  terrible  taste  that  substituted  a  mere  ostentation 
of  wealth  for  a  garb  expressive  of  art  and  sentiment. 

The  French  never  recovered  from  that  fever. 

When  Charles  VIII.  found  himself  face  to  face  with  the 
court  of  Ludovico  II  Moro,2  sinking  under  the  weight  of 
golden  shoulder-knots  and  jewellery,  a  thrill  shot  through 
the  French  army. 

From  that  time  it  was  vain  for  the  preachers  to  join 
hands  with  the  philosophers  and  demonstrate  the  infinite 
vulgarity  of  luxuriousness  and  its  deplorable  moral  effects;  it 
was  vain  for  the  legislators  to  enact  laws  ;  the  die  was  cast. 

1  For  pleasure  6ft  my  black  I  wear, 
More  often  than  for  woe  or  care. 
2[Ludovico  Sforza,  Duke  of  Milan,  one  of  the  most  vigorous  opponents  of 
the  French  king's  Italian  expeditions.    The  surname  "11  Moro"  came  from 
his  cognisance,  a  mulberry-tree.] 


222      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

People  were  dazzled,  fascinated  by  wealth :  they  knew 
not  oor  wished  to  know  what  wretchedness  it  cloaked,  how 
many  women,  and  some  of  the  noblest  of  them,  ruined  them- 
selves in  their  vanity,  how  many  others  lived  by  expedients 
that  would  not  bear  the  light.1 

Assuredly,  magnificence  had  a  glory  of  its  own  :  there 
was  no  lack  of  gazetteers  to  applaud  to  the  echo  the  marvels 
seen  on  great  occasions  :  "  Signorina  Bulcano,  in  white  cloth 
with  gold  trimmings  and  a  golden  girdle ;  her  Excellency 
the  Countess  Maddaloni  in  red  velvet ;  her  Excellency  the 
Countess  du  Rugo,  in  red  cloth  with  large  gold  necklace." 
There  is  this  to  be  said,  indeed,  that  these  chroniclers, 
superior  in  this  respect  to  some  of  ours,  were  destined  to 
come  down  to  posterity. 

Nevertheless,  this  was  inevitably  the  death  of  platonism, 
the  ruin  of  all  it  loved  and  all  it  desired.  A  fine  thing 
to  characterise  a  lady  by  the  cloth  or  velvet  with  which 
she  garbed  her  bust  or  limbs  !  In  this  profound  decadence 
of  taste  people  came  to  see  some  good  in  the  general  worship 
of  close-fitting  garments,  for,  now  that  women  were  nothing 
but  dolls,  it  was  certainly  better  that  they  should  appear 
jointed.  And  what  seriousness  could  be  expected  of,  what 
noble  idea  or  worthy  aim  could  be  suggested  to,  a  woman 
who  was  a  slave  to  her  gloves,  her  hats,  her  jewels,  who 
spent  part  of  her  day  in  close  confabulation  with  her  dress- 
maker or  jeweller  ? 

Cest  anneau  est  du  temps  passe, 
Ce  ruby  est  mal  enchasse, 
Ce  saintureau  n'est  pas  fort  gent. 
Ma  troussoire  n'est  que  d'argent, 
J'en  veuil  une  batue  en  or  .  .  .2 

and  so  on  indefinitely :  that  was  how  she  talked ;  she  was 
no  longer  her  own,  she  was  a  slave.     Satan  in  the  pit  of 

1  Alione,  in  one  of  his  farces,  has  related  the  amusing  story  of  a  Lombard 
lady  (and  she  was  not  the  only  one)  who  gave  herself  to  a  French  soldier 
passing  through,  on  the  mere  promise  of  a  dress  of  Venetian  velvet,  and  to 
whom  the  rogue  afterwards  sent  six  crowns,  with  the  excuse  that  an  every- 
day dress  was  good  enough  for  a  casual  lady. 

2  This  ring  is  old  and  out  of  date, 
This  ruby's  badly  cut : 
This  girdle's  precious  ugly — wait, 
This  casket's  silver,  but 
I  wish  for  one  of  beaten  gold — 


THE  MISSION   OF   BEAUTY  223 

hell  was  bewailing,  it  seems,  the  fact  that  he  no  longer 
saw  rustling  about,  as  formerly,  dresses  "  open  down  to 
the  waist";  and  he  cursed  platonism!  He  might  make 
himself  easy,  there  were  still  most  melting  sights  for  him ! 
And  his  colleague  Lucifer  sets  himself  to  cheer  him,  showing 
him  the  league  of  vanity  mounting  to  the  assault  of  the 
Beautiful,  the  almost  invincible  might  of  money,  combated 
and  proscribed  above,  triumphing  and  swarming  on  all  sides 
under  the  most  pitiful  forms  of  jealousy  and  coquetry :  among 
good  housewives,  who  have  neither  grasped  nor  retained 
anything  of  the  new  ideas  but  an  instinct  for  rigging 
themselves  out  to  play  the  countess  or  the  duchess — among 
kitchen  wenches  who  deck  themselves  in  fallals  and  fur- 
belows in  apish  imitation  of  their  mistresses. 

Unhappily,  the  king  went  over  to  the  side  of  vanity; 
official  France  allied  itself  with  the  most  dangerous  adver- 
saries of  Roman  philosophism  and  intellectual  splendour : 
with  the  Milanese,  whose  tinsel  and  fripperies  amused  all 
Italy ;  and  the  Venetians,  a  people  of  large  expense.  The 
struggle  was  thus  fought  out  between  sensuous  gratification 
and  aestheticism.  It  did  not  alarm  the  platonists:  they 
were  prepared  for  it ;  as  Castiglione  says :  "  There  are  fools 
everywhere." 

But  this  was  of  all  battles  the  most  arduous,  because  the 
dividing  line  between  coquetry  and  a  woman's  duty  to  be 
pleasant  was  not  always  very  clearly  marked.  A  few 
exceptional  persons  had  the  gift  of  admirably  combining 
the  two  tendencies ;  these  as  a  rule  were  Italian  women. 
At  a  celebrated  ball  given  by  the  court  of  France  in  1518, 
two  ladies,  Italian  both,  were  queens — queens  of  beauty  and 
of  charm  ;  the  one,  Clara  Visconti  Pusterla,  devoted  to 
white,  made  a  brilliant  figure  with  her  silver  embroideries 
and  ropes  of  pearls  ;  the  other,  a  sister  of  Count  Borromeo  of 
Milan,  was  a  dazzling  apparition  in  cloth  of  gold  and 
diamonds.  Yet  it  was  felt  how  secondary  and  precarious 
were  successes  of  this  external  kind,  and  how  wrong  it 
would  be  for  women  to  regard  them  as  the  real  basis  of 
their  influence.     They  were  only  one  means. 

The  fashion  in  regard  to  dwelling-house  and  furniture 
followed  almost  the  same  rules  as  that  of  costume ;  for  in  a 
well-ordered  house  everything  harmonised  with  the  people 
inhabiting  it.     The  house  is,  so   to  speak,  a  magnificent 


224      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

garment,  the  garment  defending  our  existence  against  the 
weather,  the  night,  the  intrusions  of  external  life.  Here 
too,  symmetry  of  arrangement  and  studied  designs  are  of 
little  moment:  the  house  should  exercise  a  charm,  and  there 
are  ugly  houses  which  are  infinitely  pleasing. 

A  house  is  pleasing  when  its  appearance  is  original  and 
homogeneous ;  when  its  inhabitant  has  lovingly  put  into  it 
something  of  his  own  individuality,  when  it  is  not  merely 
a  classical  and  regular  arrangement  of  stones  erected  on 
some  vacant  spot,  or  a  gimcrack  toy  with  pretentious  and 
purposeless  decorations ;  it  pleases  if  serious  thought  has 
gone  to  the  arrangement  of  its  parts,  if  it  has  projections, 
angles,  recesses  judiciously  contrived,  and  making  it,  so  to 
speak,  a  living,  breathing  thing.  This  is  the  first  rule:  a 
masculine  purposefulness. 

The  second  and  the  feminine  rule  is  that  the  house  should 
present  a  great  aspect  of  pleasantness,  an  appearance  of 
amiability.  It  is  of  vast  importance  that  it  should  not 
clash  with  the  landscape ;  it  should  fuse  with  it,  espouse  in 
some  sort  circumambient  nature,  so  as  to  radiate  an  influence 
far  beyond  its  actual  site.  This  harmony  results  as  a  rule 
from  mutual  accommodations ;  a  gloomy  house,  for  instance, 
will  not  be  planted  in  a  smiling  landscape  ;  in  a  wooded  or 
rugged  but  spacious  locality  a  man  will  set  an  extensive 
abode,  without  fantastic  decorations,  a  house  which 
dominates  outbuildings  and  approaches ;  no  gildings,  no 
polychrome  effects  will  be  thrown  up  against  a  leaden  sky  : 
a  church  will  not  be  constructed  in  the  style  of  a  hammam, 
nor  a  stock-exchange  in  the  form  of  a  Greek  temple.  The 
house,  whatever  it  be,  must  smile,  with  a  frank  and  loyal 
smile,  speaking  through  its  facade  and  its  approaches  to  the 
good  folk  who  pass,  and  beaming  on  them  a  look  of 
friendliness. 

In  the  interior,  to  furnish  it,  that  is  to  say,  to  render  it 
habitable,  all  smiles  and  happy  memories, — this  again  is  to 
enlarge  oneself,  to  complete  oneself:  and  it  is  here  that 
woman's  art  is  absolutely  indispensable.  A  human  dwelling 
in  the  nature  of  the  case  can  make  no  claim  to  a  proud 
immortality.  Every  passing  season  attacks  and  tends  to 
destroy  it ;  whilst  the  objects  of  nature  renew  themselves 
unceasingly  by  the  automatic  movement  of  their  latent 
vitality,  it  is  needful  for  us  at  every  moment  more  or  less 


THE  MISSION   OF  BEAUTY  225 

to  reconstruct  our  shelter,  under  pain  of  seeing  it  crumble 
and  fall  before  our  eyes.  It  is  like  one  of  the  fruits  of  our 
life.  Thus,  while  it  should  be  as  solid  as  possible,  while 
reminding  us  of  the  persons  with  whom  it  has  successively 
lived,  it  must  show  itself  supple  and  give  expression  to  our 
present  life,  if  only  by  fleeting  suggestions,  corresponding 
to  the  various  impressions  of  our  existence,  and  dying  when 
we  die. 

It  was  in  this  direction  that  the  fine  taste  of  prelates  and 
ladies  gave  itself  free  and  glorious  scope.  A  lover  of  the 
beautiful  is  so  keenly  conscious  that  everything  about  him 
ought  to  be  the  manifestation  of  some  flash  of  thought !  A 
chair,  a  couch,  a  piece  of  tapestry,  all  must  speak  to  us  and 
exhort  us  to  live  the  life  of  the  heart,  without  allowing 
ourselves  to  be  crushed  or  numbed.  At  Home,  the  home 
of  this  dominant  spirit,  and  even  at  Naples,  the  rays  of  its 
influence  extended  almost  inimitably ;  and  it  so  well 
attained  its  object  that  a  people  wonderfully  sensitive, 
amiable,  enthusiastic,  ignorant  of  physical  wants,  became 
enamoured  of  these  glories  of  high  culture  of  which,  how- 
ever, it  barely  caught  the  reflection,  and  attuned  itself  to 
them.  Men  hoped  the  time  was  at  hand  when  all  mankind 
would  delight  in  beauty,  they  fancied  that  they  were  born 
to  live  under  glorious  ceilings,  among  palm-trees,  gushing 
fountains  and  marvels  of  art.  To  this  day  the  humblest  of 
flymen  dilates  with  pride  in  the  artistic  treasures  of  his 
city.  And  how  diplomatically  Isabella  of  Mantua  went  to 
work  to  surround  herself  with  splendid  objects !  What  care 
Vittoria  Colonna  took  in  the  mere  ordering  of  a  casket! 
They  appreciated  equally  the  charm  of  collecting  antiques, 
diamonds,  pictures,  pottery,  plate ;  the  sole  desideratum  was 
that  the  object  of  their  quest  should  be  beautiful  or  rare, 
the  expression  of  an  artistic  idea  or  an  evocation  of  the 
past,  that  it  should  add  to  the  Attic  charm  of  life,  play  its 
part  in  the  cultivation  of  taste ;  in  a  word,  that  it  should  be 
loved.  Life  thus,  in  its  superb  radiance,  assumed  a  gran- 
deur and  delightfulness  of  which  we  too  caught  the  secret, 
in  those  days  when  the  palaces  at  Rome  still  had  their  gal- 
leries, the  villas  their  delightful  rows  of  oleanders,  the  ruins 
their  majesty.  It  was  a  genuine  and  glorious  sumptuous- 
ness,  well  calculated  to  elevate  men's  minds !  No  wonder 
that  the  desire  of  sharing  in  it  spread  through  the  world, 


226      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

and  that,  unchecked  by  natural  divisions,  men's  hearts  were 
simultaneously  possessed  by  oAe  grand  impulse  towards 
beauty.  This  embroidery  of  life  contributed  in  large 
measure  to  the  sentiment  of  the  brotherhood  of  man  which 
then  declared  itself,  and  which  appeared  so  singular ;  to-day 
we  do  not  truly  realise  its  importance,  because,  thanks  to 
the  mechanical  lessening  of  distances,  all  men  have  become 
neighbours  (and  unpleasant  neighbours  at  that) :  a  varnish 
of  uniformity  has  spread  itself  over  everything  ;  milkmaids 
and  princesses  often  read  the  same  books,  wear  almost  the 
same  hats,  marry  at  the  same  age  and  with  the  same  ideas. 
But  in  those  days  it  was  an  absolutely  new  thing,  when 
national  diversities  and  individual  liberties  were  so  strongly 
accentuated,  to  create  a  harmony  of  ideas  and  a  fellowship 
in  love,  of  which  the  women  were  the  natural  harbingers. 

Enter  the  palace  of  Margaret  of  Austria  at  Brussels,  and, 
if  you  do  not  find  yourself  back  in  Rome  or  Florence,  yet 
you  will  at  once  perceive  that  the  remarkable  mind  of  a 
princess  has  there  gathered  together  all  that  gives  charm  to 
life:  a  vast  library,  well  supplied  with  romances,  history 
and  poetry;  furniture  of  priceless  value,  stately  busts,  bril- 
liant mirrors,  portraits  of  all  the  princes  and  princesses  of 
the  time,  and  by  their  side  the  portraits  of  notorious  fools : 
a  medley  of  life  and  ideas ;  various  pedigrees  of  the  house  of 
Austria,  a  trophy  of  Indian  feathers  of  brilliant  colours, 
fierce  shaggy  heads  of  wolves,  broad  fans,  glistening  armour, 
crystals,  priceless  caskets,  medallions,  majestic  chandeliers, 
articles  in  jasper  and  adamant;  on  the  walls,  admirable 
Flemish  tapestries  spangled  with  gold  or  silver ;  on  the 
floor,  warm,  thick-piled  carpets;  here  and  there  valuable 
pictures  in  profusion.  The  visitor's  curiosity,  solicited  on 
all  sides,  knows  not  at  first  where  to  stop  to  admire.  And 
these  various  objects,  individual  as  they  are,  become  animate 
and  dwell  together  in  a  sort  of  high,  grand,  collective  exist- 
ence :  the  one  mind  which  discovered  their  affinities  seems 
to  permeate  them,  sets  them  vibrating  in  unison,  and  thus 
penetrates  the  soul  of  the  visitor. 

Through  this  great  science  of  intellectually  adorning  the 
material  conditions  of  life  a  first  result  was  obtained  :  men 
loved  life.  Sadness  concealed  itself,  joy  kept  the  whole 
world  dancing  to  its  merry  pipe.  It  was  impossible  to  be 
anything  but  gay  and  amiable.     If  it  chanced  that  someone 


THE  MISSION  OF  BEAUTY  227 

was  to  be  buried,  it  was  with  full  orchestral  accompaniment, 
amid  the  twinklings  of  a  thousand  tapers,  and  with  a  cere- 
mony quite  lyrical.  If  perchance  a  man  desired  a  melancholy 
funeral,  he  would  do  well  to  say  so  in  his  will  and  prescribe 
the  number  of  candles  ;  but  most  often  men  set  their  hearts 
on  dying  gallantly,  and  did  not  dream  of  depriving  their 
friends  of  an  honourable  entertainment  or  of  economising 
on  behalf  of  their  heirs. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  EMBROIDERY  OF  LIFE 

Meanwhile,  there  is  a  life  to  live,  there  are  things  to  do ! 
A  woman  must  get  happiness  from  the  exercise  of  all  her 
activities,  both  spontaneous  and  enforced — even  more  than 
from  her  drawing-room  or  her  jewels.  We  propose  to  pass 
in  review  as  large  a  number  of  these  occupations  as  possible, 
to  show  that,  small  or  great,  there  is  not  one  but  appears  to 
a  woman  a  source  of  joy  and  glory  if  she  mingles  love  with 
it.  Everything  she  does,  however  infinitely  humble,  be  it 
kneading  bread  for  her  husband  or  washing  his  feet,  is 
vivified  with  a  transfiguring  radiance  whenever  the  spirit 
of  abnegation  animates  her  toil,  whenever  she  reflects  that 
this  husband  is  not  the  sole  man  existing  in  the  world,  nor 
a  sort  of  domestic  drill-sergeant,  but  represents  the  eternal 
idea  sounding  in  every  heart.  We  have  already  seen  these 
noble  women  in  days  of  trouble  quivering  with  devotion  at 
the  bedside  of  their  sick  husbands ;  it  is  the  same  in  days  of 
happiness.  They  find  strength  in  abstraction;  the  things 
that  surround  us  so  marvellously  change  their  aspect,  con- 
tract, expand,  according  as  we  take  them  for  what  they  are 
or  glorify  them  with  thoughts  of  higher  things — thoughts, 
not  idle  fancies,  whether  roseate  or  gloomy,  whether  too 
brilliant  in  prospect  or  too  distressing  in  reality.  It  is 
chiefly  in  domestic  life  that  abstraction  is  useful.  The 
woman  must  steep  her  hands  in  beauty,  fill  her  eyes  with 
love,  and  then  look  at  things  courageously  and  truthfully. 
Everything,  even  vice  itself,  appears  frigid,  vulgar,  and 
commonplace  to  materialists  ;  women  ought  (yes,  ought,  not 
merely  can)  to  render  everything  warm  and  gay — even  virtue. 
Let  us  take  haphazard  some  of  the  doings  which  most 
strikingly   exhibit   them — their   eating,   walking,   country 

22S 


THE  EMBROIDERY  OF  LIFE  229 

habits,  Sunday  occupations.  From  each  of  these  they  are 
able  to  strike  the  sacred  spark.  We  shall  see  how  every- 
thing is  transfigured  in  their  hands. 

First  then,  their  eating.  Nothing  is  more  material  in 
itself,  and  nothing  better  lends  itself  to  spiritualisation. 

A  house  was  characterised  by  the  way  in  which  a  formal 
dinner  was  managed  ;  this  was  the  touchstone  of  true  st}7le. 
On  the  table  was  placed  the  massive  and  weighty  silver 
plate,  the  family  treasure  which  the  mistress  of  the  house 
kept  under  lock  and  key,  and  which  was  worth  a  fortune. 
The  plate  of  some  families  was  valued  at  a  million  francs. 
On  days  of  high  festivity  the  table  blazed  with  ponderous 
gold,  but  they  were  content  with  silver  for  private  dinners. 

The  regulation  of  the  menu  was  rightly  regarded  as  a 
matter  of  such  difficulty  and  importance  that  men  of  the 
highest  merit  made  it  their  study  to  lay  down  fixed  principles 
on  the  subject.  Fulvio  Orsini1  has  acquainted  us  with  all 
the  best  traditions  of  ancient  Rome.  Platina,2  the  Raphael 
of  the  tribe,  published  under  the  auspices  of  Cardinal 
Roverella  a  treatise  which  may  be  cited  as  a  perfect  model. 

In  countries  strange  to  the  new  ideas,  men  thought  only 
of  their  palates,  os  sublime,  in  the  ironical  phrase  of  Brandt.3 
In  Germany  guzzling,  at  rare  intervals  but  in  enormous 
quantities,  was  the  only  joy.  So  late  as  the  end  of  the 
century  Montaigne  asked  a  former  ambassador  in  Germany 
how  often  he  had  been  obliged  to  get  drunk  in  the  service 
of  his  sovereign,  and  the  ambassador  reckoned  up  with  all 
gravity,  and  declared  that  he  had  got  off  with  three 
occasions,  all  told. 

The  French  traditional  practice  was  the  same.  Fairs, 
markets,  pilgrimages,  weddings,  baptisms,  funerals,  anni- 
versaries, meetings  of  gilds  or  corporations  all  served  as 
pretexts  for  village  gourmandisings  characterised  by  enthusi- 
astic   drunkenness,   and    often   enlivened   with    brawls   in 

1  [Librarian  to  Cardinal  Farnese  (1529-1600),  a  great  authority  on  anti- 
quities, especially  coins ;  he  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  modest  income  on 
pictures  and  bronzes.] 

2  [Historian  and  member  of  the  academy  of  Pomponius  Laetus  (1421- 
1481).  He  was  Vatican  librarian  under  Sixtus  IV.,  wrote  a  history  of  the 
popes,  and  a  curious  work  on  hygiene  entitled  Opuscvlum  de  obsoniis  ac 
honesta  voluptate — the  work  here  referred  to.] 

s[Sebastian  Brandt  (1438-1521),  jurisconsult  and  poet  of  Strasburg, 
author  of  the  famous  Ship  of  Fools,  referred  to  in  subsequent  pages.] 


230      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

which  both  sexes  took  part.  At  the  end  of  one  of  these 
feasts  we  find  the  wife  of  the  gild  president  dealing  most 
energetically  with  a  toper  who  had  called  her  an  "old 
witch."  The  chateaux  were  no  less  fond  of  high  feeding.1 
Historians  ought  to  consult  the  kitchen  account-books ! 
Without  them  they  will  never  succeed  in  arriving  at  well- 
founded  judgments;  we  know  no  human  document  more 
convincing,  none  which  enables  us  with  more  certainty  to 
reconstruct  a  bygone  mode  of  life.  Unhappily  the  old 
kitchen  books  of  France  reveal  a  deplorable  spectacle  ;  it  is 
one  long  procession  of  herds  of  oxen  and  flocks  of  sheep, 
innumerable  poultry,  rabbits  and  partridges  by  the  dozen, 
small  game  in  hundreds,  and  pigs  in  disgusting  profusion. 
The  whole  of  the  delicacies  consists,  even  in  the  most 
distinguished  houses,  of  a  few  cloves  or  sticks  of  cinnamon 
to  make  hippocras  of.  As  to  the  wine,  it  is  wine  of  the 
current  vintage  drawn  from  the  cask  !  Caesar  Borgia  must 
have  been  greatly  surprised  one  Friday,  in  the  winter  of 
1498,  while  staying  with  Madame  de  la  Tre'moille,  to  see 
filing  in  a  course  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  fish.  The 
next  day,  again  a  fast  day,  the  avenues  leading  to  the 
chateau  were  thronged  with  carts  loaded  with  fish,  in 
honour  of  the  visit  of  King  Louis  XII. ;  in  particular 
there  arrived  seven  hundred  and  fifty  eels.  This  was  in 
Rabelais'  country.  Further,  in  regard  to  tutelary  geniuses 
of  the  table,  they  were  acquainted  with  none  |but 
appalling   spectres — Dame   Gout,2   Madam    Gravel,  or  my 

1  On  ordinary  days,  the  household  of  Marie  of  Cleves  easily  disposed  of 
half  a  calf,  a  quarter  of  an  ox,  five  or  six  sheep,  and  dozens  of  fowls. 

a"Gout,"  cries  Cardan,  "is  queen,  gout  is  noble  !  She  is  a  synthesis 
of  ills  !  She  is  discreet  and  courteous  ;  she  attacks  only  the  showable 
parts  of  the  body.  There  is  nothing  hideous  about  her  as  about  leprosy. 
She  purifies  man  and  raises  his  moral  worth,  as  all  pain  does,  but  more 
than  any  other  pain.  Why  is  she  the  enemy  of  grand  dinners,  and  of 
midnight  toil,  and  of  all  the  charming  occupations  of  mind  and  body  ?  "  (De 
malo  medendi  usu. )  A  German  song  was  dedicated  to  her : 
0  Gout  my  goddess,  Gout  my  queen, 

What  mortal  wight  but  fears  thee  ? 
Earth,  sea  and  sky  have  ever  been 
Thy  subjects  :  Jove  reveres  thee. 
O  mighty  goddess,  hear  the  prayer 
Of  those  that  now  implore  thee  : 
Give  peace  to  every  gouty  toe, 
And  grant  to  all  who  limping  go 
Freedom  from  pain,  release  from  care, 
And  perfect  health  before  thee. — (Podagrae  Laiut.) 


THE  EMBROIDERY  OF  LIFE  231 

Lady  Apoplexy,  to  whom  they  gaily  made  their  saluta- 
tions.1 

Then  comes  philosophy  to  preside  at  their  feasts  with 
salutary  effect.  It  teaches  men  that  dining  is  a  spiritual 
function.  The  table  becomes  idealised.  Much  thought  is 
devoted  to  its  decorations,  to  regaling  the  eyes  with  the 
sight  of  beautiful  birds  in  their  charming  many-hued 
plumage — peacocks,  storks,  or  small  and  pretty  birds  strung 
on  skewers.  The  mistress  of  the  house  shows  her  art  in 
having  the  daintiest  courses  served  on  gold  and  crystal — 
things  which  while  tickling  the  palate  content  the  mind ; 
first  dessert,  composed  of  fruits  and  sweetmeats,  then  com- 
pounds of  eggs  or  fish,  light  dishes,  in  which  pistachios, 
pepper,  ginger,  rosemary,  thyme,  peppermint — everything 
that  has  sweetness  or  aroma  insinuates  itself  and  figures  in 
manifold  combinations.  Just  as  in  Plato's  Symposium, 
people  take  their  places  at  table  not  to  eat  but  to  talk, 
because  conversation  can  have  no  warmer,  more  cheerful, 
more  restful  setting.  Often  in  the  platonist  system  some 
incomparable  lady  presided,  and  everything  centred  in  her ; 
from  her  eyes  "  rained  love,"  that  is,  in  the  words  of  the 
guests,  "  meat  and  drink,  ambrosia  and  nectar."  She  set 
the  pitch ;  there  was  a  cross-fire  of  witticisms  flashing 
over  the  table  like  fireworks,  or  else  wit  fluttered  lightly 
about  amid  a  subdued  hum  of  laughter.  With  one  consent 
these  were  voted  delightful  hours.  Men  fuddled  themselves 
with  talk :  "  'Tis  my  greatest  vice,"  confesses  Erasmus. 

This  art  became  so  well  acclimatised  at  the  court  of 
Francis  I.  that  it  soon  became  the  joy  of  France.  Margaret 
of  France  writes  enthusiastically  about  those  dinners  at 
which  they  used  to  "fill  themselves  with  words  more  than 
with  meat."  French  wit,  which  always  owes  a  little  to 
good  cheer,  sparkled  quite  naturally. 

In  Italy  they  were  at  fault  in  using  aesthetic  means  too 
freely  to  support  the  dinner.  They  durst  not  trust  simply 
to  conversation,  but  employed  music,  a  proceeding  which 
appeared  rank  heresy  in  France.  King  Alfonso  of  Naples, 
indeed,  long  regarded  as  the  pastmaster  of  good  living, 
complicated  his  dinners  with  all  sorts  of  refinements ;  after 
the  first  courses,  the  ears  were  enchanted  with  harmonies 
soft  as  the  breeze  of  Capri  blowing  over  the  sparkling, 
1  Gout  was  very  common.     Louise  of  Savoy  suffered  from  it. 


232      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

rippling  sea ;  or  else  there  were  mimes,  the  pulcinella,1  and 
roars  of  laughter.  Then  his  guests  returned  to  the  table  and 
remained  till  the  moment  when,  their  heads  swimming  with 
the  strong  and  generous  fumes  of  Falernian,  they  removed 
the  plate  and  withdrew. 

In  Germany  the  whole  day  was  spent  at  the  table,  with  a 
licence  that  was  often  gross,  and  with  all  that  old  mediaeval 
gaiety  of  which  the  Table-talk  of  Luther  has  preserved  an 
excellent  specimen.  Yet  the  Rhine  is  not  so  broad  nor  the 
Alps  so  high  but  that  such  customs  soon  appeared  disgust- 
ing and  lamentable  when  compared  with  the  politer  modes 
which  were  spreading  through  the  world.  Many  writers 
endeavoured  to  polish  these  table  manners  by  publishing 
manuals  of  etiquette  and  collections  of  bons  mots.  If  they 
did  not  establish  the  complete  art  of  conversation  they 
indicated  its  rudiments,  and  indeed  their  success  was 
sufficient  to  necessitate  in  1549  a  recasting  of  the  fourth 
edition  of  the  classical  collection  of  Gastius,2  and  the  sup- 
pression of  a  certain  number  of  pleasantries  which  seemed 
out  of  place  "  in  view  of  the  distresses  of  the  time."  Thus 
the  art  of  table-talk  became  so  popular  that  even  in 
Germany  people  endeavoured  to  cultivate  it;  but  sprightli- 
ness,  which  is  its  very  salt,  remained  till  further  orders  a 
distinctively  French  quality. 

The  ball  and  the  dance,  though  much  more  aesthetic  in 
themselves,  were  a  great  deal  more  difficult  to  idealise, 
because  in  them  the  sensuous  element  bulks  more  largely. 
Here,  however,  there  was  no  need  to  exaggerate,  and  to 
proscribe  dancing  would  have  been  absurd.  What  could  be 
more  ridiculous  than  the  jealousy  of  certain  husbands 
(husbands  do  not  stand  sufficiently  in  awe  of  ridicule!). 
And  it  was  so  useless,  too.  A  woman  who  has  her  wits 
about  her  is  never  at  a  loss  for  a  pretext  for  going  to  a  rout ; 
there  is  always  a  young  girl  at  hand  who  needs  chaperoning. 
Someone,  indeed,  mentions  a  young  matron  of  Louise  of 
Savoy's  own  court,  who,  to  save  an  old  husband  an  apoplectic 
fit,  had  the  heroism  to  immure  herself  at  home ;  but  this  is 
dead  against  the  spirit  of  sociability.  Why  forge  useless 
chains  ?     Vives  himself,  who  is  not  open  to  suspicion,  agrees 

1  [A  sort  of  farcical  comedy.] 

2  [Jean  Gast,  Swiss  Protestant  theologian  (died  1553):  author  of  Con- 
vivalium  sermonum  liber,  meriajocis  ac  salibus  re/ertus. 


THE  EMBROIDERY   OF   LIFE  233 

that  "dancing  is  a  very  natural  accompaniment  to  the 
pleasures  of  society  and  the  table."  But  there  is  dancing 
and  dancing.  The  ideal  of  platonist  joy  and  happiness 
would  be  a  free  and  thoroughly  intellectual  dance  with  a 
calm  and  delicious  rhythm,  a  dance  that  would  add  a  pleasure 
to  life,  the  dancer  in  light  floating  drapery,  bare-footed,  bare- 
headed, ungirt,  in  the  sweet  air  of  springtime,  on  a  smooth, 
soft  lawn  among  jasper  and  coral,  under  the  long-leaved 
palms,  amidst  the  scent  of  roses  and  pine-trees — an  intoxi- 
cating dance  the  pure  motion  of  which  harmonises  with  the 
vast  music  of  Nature,  the  cooing  of  doves,  the  mighty 
arpeggios  of  the  sea.  The  woman  who,  alone  or  hand  in 
hand  with  her  companions,  abandons  herself  to  this  exquisite 
charm,  this  magical  sweetness,  who  associates  herself  with 
all  things  in  this  imponderable  rhythm — does  she  not 
represent  a  goddess  of  happiness,  and  does  she  not  come  to 
incarnate  for  us  the  divine  charm  of  Nature  ? 

In  practice  the  dance  hardly  attains  this  ideal ;  yet,  even 
confined  within  the  walls  of  a  room  and  reduced  to  a  social 
art,  it  can  still  meet  the  high  demands  of  moral  fellowship 
and  become  for  women  an  instrument  of  the  most  legitimate 
charm.  The  Italians  especially  excelled  in  giving  it  a  solemn 
air  of  sentimental  gravity ;  some  of  their  f&tes  are  remark- 
able in  history — for  example,  the  ball  given  at  Milan  by 
Francesco  Bernardino  Visconti  on  October  15,  1499,  in 
honour  of  the  conqueror,  Louis  XII.,  or,  in  point  of  magni- 
ficence, the  subscription  ball  got  up  by  the  household 
servants  of  Venice  in  February,  1524  These  were  memor- 
able triumphs  of  art.  But  this  high  significance  of  the  ball 
was  never  understood  in  France.  When  people  gave  a  ball 
they  troubled  themselves  very  little  about  posterity,  but  a 
great  deal  about  a  certain  number  of  trifling  present  joys ; 
and  these  made  women  descend  a  little  from  their  pedestal. 

There  was  in  particular  one  peculiar  custom,  eminently 
pleasant  in  itself,  but  not  very  celestial,  and  lending  itself  to 
abuses.     This  was  the  custom  of  kissing. 

Well-bred  men  in  every  country  used  respectfully  to  kiss 
a  lady's  hand.1  The  Italians  did  so  with  fervour;  if  re- 
quired they  would  have  kissed  the  feet ;  and  a  man  had  to 

1  Entering  a  lady's  house,  a  man  would  kiss  her  hands  ;  and  to  recall  to 
mind  a  first  presentation  the  graceful  formula  frequently  employed  was : 
"  The  first  time  I  kissed  her  hands." 


234     THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

be  a  German  to  stigmatise  as  idolatry  the  kiss  applied  to 
the  toes  of  the  Pope !  Italian  women  disported  with  this 
kissing  with  perfect  grace  and  all  sorts  of  little  refine- 
ments. At  a  casual  meeting  they  confined  themselves  to  a 
pleasant  handshake;  but  tete-a-tete  with  a  man  they 
wished  to  honour,  they  would  be  the  first  to  kiss  his  hand, 
fondly,  and  without  any  of  those  affectations  of  bashfulness 
which  sometimes  inspire  such  bitter  afterthoughts.  It  was 
a  charming  and  very  natural  custom ;  but  in  France  it  took 
quite  another  complexion.  Men,  being  the  masters,  knew 
nothing  of  fine  shades  and  nice  distinctions ;  the  having  to 
greet  or  take  leave  of  an  agreeable  woman  was  sufficient 
pretext  for  kissing  her  lips,  and  the  motive  they  alleged  for 
this  proceeding  was  that  it  struck  them  as  being  "amiable 
and  sweet."  In  the  ballroom  it  was  another  story ;  every 
dance-figure  ended  in  a  kiss,  and  if  we  must  add  that  it 
was  complicated  with  wild  and  giddy  horse-play,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  a  French  ball  was  racy  of  the  soil. 
Like  a  genuine  Frenchman,  Louis  XII.  felt  it  his  duty  at 
Bernardino  Visconti's  ball  to  kiss  one  after  another  all  the 
ladies  presented  to  him,  in  other  words,  every  woman  in 
Lombardy. 

Ah  !  if  the  platonists  and  the  true  friends  of  women  had 
been  heeded,  things  would  have  been  different !  They  were 
scandalised  at  such  spectacles,  which  poisoned  their  intel- 
lectual joys.  Years  before,  Petrarch  had  risen  against 
customs  that  much  less  affected  their  position :  what  would 
he  have  said  if  he  had  come  to  life  again  !  The  worst  of  it 
was  that  these  French  manners  were  like  the  little  leaven, 
and  Castiglione  notes  that  the  leaven  was  creeping  into 
Italy — Castiglione,  who  had  seen  the  time  when  a  man  durst 
not  even  take  the  hand  of  his  partner !  As  to  Vivos,  he 
dashes  off  a  picture  of  dances  and  kisses  with  his  Spanish 
impetuosity :  "  What  is  the  meaning  of  so  many  kisses  ? 
Of  old  time  it  was  lawful  to  give  a  kiss  only  to  one's 
relatives;  now  'tis  a  general  custom,  in  Burgundy  and 
in  England,  to  kiss  whomsoever  a  man  pleases  ...  As  for 
me,  I  would  fain  know  what  means  so  much  osculation  .  .  . 
What  is  the  use  of  these  many  leaps  that  girls  make,  held  by 
their  companions  under  the  arms  so  that  they  may  kick  the 
higher  ?  What  pleasure  do  these  grasshoppers  take  in 
torturing  themselves  thus  and  remaining  the  greater  part 


THE   EMBROIDERY   OF   LIFE  235 

of  the  night  without  wearying  of  the  dance  body  and 
soul?" 

The  question  was  more  than  once  raised  as  to  what  extent 
good  manners  authorised,  or  rather  obliged,  well-born  women 
to  offer  their  lips  to  all  and  sundry,  and  to  lend  themselves 
to  promiscuous  capering.1  This  question  was  much  debated : 
in  general  the  most  sensible  folk  considered  that  they  could 
not  absolutely  avoid  the  custom,  accepted  as  it  was  in  good 
society,  but  that  it  was  possible  to  practise  some  reserve ; 
for  example,  to  present  the  cheek  instead  of  the  mouth. 
Montaigne  pities  with  all  his  heart  the  women  "  who  have 
to  lend  their  lips  to  any  Jack  with  three  lackeys  in  his 
suite";  but  so  trivial  a  subjection  seemed  to  him,  by  its 
very  triviality,  to  be  of  no  consequence  :  "  A  high  price  adds 
a  flavour  to  meat ! "  He  holds  rather  with  those  who  saw 
in  it  a  simple  act  of  courtesy,  to  which  an  honest  woman 
could  have  no  possible  objection,  or  at  most  so  insignificant 
a  favour  that  there  was  nothing  to  make  a  fuss  about.  We 
are  bound  to  add,  however,  that  this  was  not  everyone's 
opinion ;  and  there  were  not  wanting  dilettantes  who  by 
no  means  regarded  this  favour  as  so  unimportant ;  Ronsard 
in  all  frankness  considered  it  delightful  and  took  infinite 
pleasure  in  it.2  As  to  Melin  de  Saint-Gelais,  on  one  occasion 
when  he  had  won  a  dozen  kisses  at  forfeits,  he  swore  that  it 
was  not  half  enough :  "  Twelve  is  too  few,  compared  with 
the  infinite." 

Here  again  fashion  was  more  than  a  match  for  philosophy; 
and,  barring  a  few  isolated  exceptions,  kissing  and  dancing 
carried  all  before  them.     Examples  come  from   all   sides: 

1  To  civilise  his  dominions,  Peter  the  Great  required  his  subjects  of  both 
sexes  to  learn  dancing,  and  he  directed  the  performance,  like  a  general 
directing  manoeuvres.  He  insisted  on  the  gentlemen  kissing  the  ladies  on 
the  lips. 

2  "  Ou  soit  d'un  baiser  sec,  ou  d'un  baiser  humide, 
D'un  baiser  court  ou  long,  ou  d'un  baiser  qui  guide 
L'ame  dessuz  la  bouche  et  laisse  trespasser 
Le  baiseur  .  .  . 
Ou  d'un  baiser  donne"  comme  les  colombelles." 

[Dry  kiss  or  wet  kiss, 

Long  kiss  or  short  kiss — 

Kiss  that  lures  the  kisser's  soul, 

Leading  him  to  sin  and  dole — 

Kiss  that  seals  the  purest  loves, 

Innocent  as  kiss  of  doves.] 


236      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

from  the  court  with  its  licentious  masked  balls,  and  from 
the  heart  of  the  provinces ;  witness  that  singular  strike  of 
the  ladies  of  Aix  in  Provence.  The  courts  having  interdicted, 
on  the  score  of  modesty,  the  dance  known  as  the  volta  (a 
sort  of  cancan),  these  ladies  at  once  threatened  to  betake 
themselves  en  masse  to  the  pope  at  Avignon,  and  their 
affrighted  husbands  had  to  obtain  the  annulment  of  the 
decree. 

The  platonists  and  their  friends  knew  the  world  too  well 
deliberately  to  open  a  campaign  against  abuses  they  could 
not  destroy.  They  confined  themselves  to  bewailing  them. 
It  struck  them  as  deplorable  to  see  men  amusing  themselves 
hour  after  hour  in  cutting  their  clownish  capers  at  the 
expense  of  honest  women.  They  considered  it  absolutely 
ridiculous  to  pretend  to  forbid  men  in  the  ordinary  inter- 
course of  life  to  smirch  by  word,  look  or  gesture  a  lady 
who  pleased  them,  while  at  a  ball  everything  was  per- 
missible. 

The  remedy,  they  thought,  would  be  found  in  giving 
women  more  serious  and  more  elevated  tastes ;  they  believed 
that  a  woman  habituated  to  really  noble  ideas  would  know 
how  to  set  herself  high  enough  to  win  love  without  yielding 
to  the  caprice  of  the  first  comer. 

The  Huguenots  pursued  a  different  policy,  and  did  not 
shrink  from  attacking  with  all  their  force  every  kind  of 
dancing:  it  would  seem  that  they  did  not  dance  at  all. 
They  spoke  of  animals  coupling,  of  disastrous  confidences  : 
"hook"  cries  the  good  Daneau1  with  horror,  "look  at  this 
lady  with  her  head  high,  vaulting,  whirling,  swinging  herself 
about,  making  a  clatter  with  her  feet."  That  was  what  you 
saw  at  the  ball :  could  anything  be  more  ridiculous  ?  But 
what  most  strikes  him  is  that  she  leaves  her  modesty  and 
her  mantle  together  in  the  hands  of  the  lackeys  in  the 
cloak-room.  "There  any  man  may  run  his  eye  over  the 
ladies  as  they  stand,  even  with  their  husbands  or  mothers, 
and  may  choose  any  woman  he  pleases,  in  other  words,  the 
woman  who  excites  his  lust :  those  whom  the  eyes  have 
chosen  the  hands  clasp,  and  the  men,  as  though  already 
in  the  thrill  and  enjoyment  of  their  desires,  kiss  them,  hug 
them,  lead  them  through  the  room ;  the  young  fellows  exert 

1  [One  of  the  earliest  of  French  theologians  who  accepted  the  Reformed 
laith,  born  in  1530.     He  wrote  a  tractate  on  dancing.] 


THE  EMBROIDERY   OF  LIFE  237 

themselves  to  appear  lively  and  gay,  so  as  to  entertain  and 
caress  with  a  thousand  tricks  and  approaches  the  girls  they 
hold,  and  the  girls  show  no  reluctance  to  respond  in  kind. 
In  the  volta  there  are  regular  tricks  for  making  one's 
partner  bound  and  rise  so  high  that  the  calves,  even  the 
thighs  are  shamelessly  exposed  and  prostituted  to  the  eyes 
of  the  throng.  The  dancers  go  up  and  down,  lose  sight 
of  each  other,  then  find  themselves  close  together  again; 
and  when  they  meet  there  are  oglings  and  caperings, 
redoubled  gaieties,  all  showing  how  their  hearts  are  bound- 
ing with  joy  at  seeing  themselves  once  more  so  near  the 
accomplishment  of  their  desires.  Every  kind  of  dance  gives 
opportunity  for  discovering  ways  of  pleasing,  seeing,  touch- 
ing one  another  more  familiarly ;  and  all  this  goes  on  to  the 
strains  of  all  sorts  of  instruments." 

The  Huguenots,  it  will  be  seen,  did  not  mince  their  words. 
But  dancing  was  never  a  whit  the  worse.  According  to  the 
feminists  it  was  in  itself  neither  evil  nor  ridiculous ;  the  art 
consisted  in  idealising  the  play  of  the  limbs,  as  the  work  of 
the  digestion  had  been  idealised ;  and  they  were  agreed 
that,  the  brain  being  in  this  case  farther  away,  the  task 
was  obviously  more  difficult. 

On  the  other  hand,  women  readily  gave  up  anything  that 
was  not  congenial  to  sensibility :  gaming,  for  instance.  With 
their  husbands  gaming  was  a  frenzy;  mature  men,  boys, 
busy  men,  idle  men,  everybody  gambled.  At  the  gaming 
table  all  distinctions  of  rank  disappeared  ;  a  great  lord 
would  borrow  a  hundred  crowns  from  his  barber.  What 
was  a  gaming-hall  ?  A  place  where  not  a  word  was  uttered 
save  as  an  exclamation  or  an  oath.  The  ladies  permitted 
a  game  of  draughts,  chess  or  trictrac,  but  would  hear  of 
nothing  else.  They  preferred  the  embraces  of  which  Daneau, 
Vives  and  the  husbands  complained. 

For  ladies  of  middle  station  a  usual  means  of  exercising 
their  charm  to  the  best  advantage  was  to  go  to  mass,  especi- 
ally on  a  Sunday,  to  the  "church  parade";  that  served  them 
instead  of  a  drawing-room. 

We  have  nothing  to  do  here,  of  course,  with  their  religious 
sentiments,  but  only  with  their  visible  devices  for  capti- 
vating men.  They  went  to  church  as  to  a  common  haunt 
01  a  family  reunion.  God  is  the  good  Father  who  collects 
His  children  about  Him  once  a  week.     Sunday  is  the  day 


238      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

consecrated  to  lofty  impressions,  to  the  enjoyment  in  common 
of  the  things  that  constitute  life — the  day  of  beauty,  the 
day  of  music,  lovely  frescoes,  and  displays  of  the  latest 
fashion.  The  sanctuary  was  treated  with  an  affectionate 
familiarity,  against  which  the  preachers  had  long  been 
protesting  in  vain. 

In  the  northern  parts  indeed  this  familiarity  was  accom- 
panied with  very  objectionable  scenes,  and  the  clergy  were 
at  great  pains  to  restrain  its  abuses.  At  Tournay,  for 
example,  it  appeared  very  disagreeable  to  the  cathedral 
clergy  to  serve  every  year  as  lay  figures  in  the  grotesque 
procession  of  the  Holy  Innocents,  and  afterward  to  be 
abbots  of  misrule  in  taverns ;  they  obtained  the  suppression 
of  the  festival  in  1489.  But  the  coarse  merriment  was  not 
scotched ;  everybody,  the  principal  personages  of  the  town 
included,  made  common  cause  with  the  children  dispossessed 
of  so  venerable  a  privilege  ;  and  in  1498  the  agitation  took 
the  shape  of  a  nocturnal  kettle-drumming  which  gave  great 
concern  to  the  Parliament  of  Paris. 

In  the  south  there  was  no  need  to  fear  such  eccentricities  ; 
the  church  was  the  temple  of  the  Beautiful  because  it 
belonged  to  the  women.  The  congregation  gathers  in  a 
motley,  swaying,  chattering  crowd ;  it  takes  some  time  for 
every  lady  to  succeed  in  settling  her  finery  on  her  cushion, 
in  a  convenient  place  for  seeing  and  hearing  well.  Then 
there  arises  a  confused  hum  of  gossip  more  or  less  discreet,  a 
sound  of  stifled  laughter,  a  rustling  of  cushions:  '•'  There  is  no 
better  place  for  a  chat  than  church  "  ;  it  is  for  all  the  world 
like  a  concert  of  "  magpies  caught  in  a  snare."  Ladies  call 
each  other  by  name,  "Jeanne,  Catherine,  Francoise."  A 
lady  who  comes  late  tries  to  skip  in  before  another  who 
arrived  early.  The  orchestra  can  barely  drown  all  these 
noises  ;  the  opening  prayer  is  delayed.  Many  men  standing 
in  the  aisles  fancy  they  are  on  'change,  and  talk  over  their 
affairs ;  at  one  time  dandies  used  to  come  hawk  on  fist  or 
dog  at  heel :  others,  motionless  like  machines,  are  meditating 
— who  knows  what  ?  Nothing  at  all,  probably.  Some  are 
watching  the  many-coloured  undulations  in  the  nave — the 
crimped  hair,  the  dainty  hats.  They  quiz  a  handsome  blue 
bodice  with  yellow  strings  and  green  sleeves,  cut  very  low. 
The  ladies  have  a  wonderful  talent  for  sitting  stiffly  erect, 
posing  in  such  a  way  that  they  show  their  profile  or  half- 


THE   EMBROIDERY   OF   LIFE  239 

profile  to  the  best  advantage,  their  eyes  sparkling,  and 
sometimes  stealing  a  wicked  little  side-glance.  That  is  what 
they  call  high  mass ;  those  are  the  accessories  of  a  fashion- 
able confessional. 

In  this  way  a  fine  philosophic  equality  establishes  itself 
with  the  utmost  perfection  at  the  steps  of  the  altar,  far 
more  successfully  than  in  any  palace ;  all  cliquishness  even 
disappears ;  a  woman  who  has  toiled  all  the  week  at  her 
spinning-wheel  displays  her  charms  by  the  side  of  the  lady 
of  rank,  moved  by  the  same  sentiment  of  elegance,  idleness, 
and  art.  For  anyone  with  the  least  spark  of  sensibility  or 
love  of  the  beautiful,  church  becomes  the  land  of  dreams, 
the  starting-point  for  every  elevating  influence.  The  Gothic 
church,  with  its  lofty,  light,  graceful  columns,  lifts  the  soul 
into  a  sort  of  mystic  accord ;  there  is  something  warmer, 
more  human,  more  genuinely  intimate  about  the  Italian 
church ;  women  high  or  humble  experience  there  a  sensa- 
tion of  unmixed  delight.  They  contemplate  with  tender 
trustfulness  the  imperturbable  Madonna  who  has  already 
seen  the  passage  of  many  generations,  and  who  continues 
to  regard  them  from  her  nook  in  the  wall  with  her  woman's 
smile — that  smile  of  infinite  sweetness,  of  lingering  and 
universal  pity,  directed  towards  the  children  and  the  dead, 
towards  all  who  suffer  and  love,  weep  and  laugh,  a  smile 
like  a  sweet-savoured  incense  of  purification  and  grace. 
The  Italians  loved  the  magnificence  of  their  temples — the 
marbles  bathed  in  sunlight,  the  shadowy  arches  where 
the  soul  could  unbosom  itself  without  blasphemy,  and  all 
those  little  secluded  chapels  in  which  every  man  found  his 
own  saint,  and  came  to  offer  up  his  poor,  trembling,  fainting 
heart  as  the  whole  ex-voto  of  life.  In  these  hidden 
splendours,  in  the  charm  of  mystic  music  soaring  amidst 
paintings  and  sculptures,  gilded  ornaments  and  exquisite 
perfumes,  midway  between  the  past  and  the  future,  there  is 
a  wonderfully  soft  and  voluptuous  pleasure.  It  is  with 
profound  philosophy  that  Caviceo  lays  the  scene  of  the 
first  interview  between  his  hero  and  heroine  in  the 
shade  of  an  altar;  assuredly,  in  wrapping  itself  with  this 
veil  of  refinement  and  modesty,  love  puts  on  a  sacred 
character.  So  the  church  becomes,  in  its  wealth  of  com- 
passion, the  haven  of  refuge  for  pure  and  sensitive  souls,  and 
even  for  some  others.     Anne  of  Rohan  gave  tryst  to  her 


240      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

lover  in  the  chapel  of  Amboise  ;x  a  young  girl  of  Orleans 
with  Machiavelian  cunning  made  a  Franciscan  friar  her 
catspaw  to  attract  the  student  she  loved.2  Pontanus 
depicts  the  prolonged  meditations  of  the  Neapolitan  ladies, 
long  after  the  last  of  the  candles  had  been  extinguished  in 
the  dusky  nave.8  A  thousand  incidents  of  this  sort  might 
be  cited :  Francis  I.  in  the  church  of  Amboise  pursuing  a 
charming  girl  with  his  devotion  ; 4  Panurge,  whom  Rabelais 
sets  to  dog  the  footsteps  of  a  noble  lady,  piously  offering  her 
holy  water,  slipping  inflammatory  love-letters  into  her  hand 
during  mass,  and  playing  the  most  impudent  tricks  to  attract 
her  attention  ;  the  poet  Cre'tin,  furious  because  at  Lyons  the 
church  services  are  turned  to  account  almost  exclusively  by 
young  fops  and  paunchy  bankers. 

Pilgrimages  also  were  capable  of  becoming  a  source  of 
exquisite  emotions  for  artists  in  happiness.  The  author  of 
the  Imitation  has  said  that  to  be  often  on  pilgrimage  is 
seldom  to  be  a  saint.  Indeed,  at  the  moment  when  the 
indulgences  were  pronounced,  the  church  porches  were 
quite  invisible  behind  the  smoke  from  the  cookshops  or  the 
booths  in  the  fair,  and  an  old  author  complains  that  you 
could  not  even  catch  sight  of  37our  friends.  But  how  these 
gross  indulgences  were  transfigured  by  the  aesthetic  spirit  I 
What  ravishing  effects  it  derived  from  them ! 

It  was  no  longer  paintings  or  sculptures  that  troubled 
hearts  and  pure  hearts  gazed  upon :  they  penetrated  the 
clear  heavens  above.     Blessed  are  the  pure ! 

The  sweet,  tender  Isabella  d'Este  set  out  thus  to  trans- 
port her  soul  across  the  plains  of  Umbria,  towards  the  calm 
and  glorious  homes  of  peace  and  art,  Loretto  and  Assist 
It  was  early  spring,  when  the  days  were  clear  and  sunny  j 
every  morning  after  mass  the  little  caravan  resumed  its 
march  with  its  picturesque  escort,  piously,  tranquilly,  ideally. 
During  the  Easter  festival  it  made  a  halt  with  the  Duke  and 

1  Heplameron,  Tale  21. 

2Bonaventure  des  Periers,  Tale  114. 

8  Templa  pudicitia.n  macular) t ,  ni  rite  peractis 

Rebus  abis  :  tenipli  noxia  saepe  mora  est.      (De  Liberis. ) 
[The  temples  stain  thy  modesty  unless  when  service  is  over  thou  departest , 
to  delay  in  the  temple  is  often  hurtful.] 

4  Heptamtron,  Tale  42. 


THE  EMBROIDERY  OF  LIFE  241 

Duchess  of  Urbino  in  the  delightful  palace  of  Gubbio, 
smiling  down  from  amongst  its  gardens  and  fountains. 

The  woman  who  has  been  able  to  live  these  hours  of  pure 
enthusiasm  is  conscious  of  accomplishing  a  large  part  of  her 
dream.  She  is  within  sight  of  reconciling  two  opposing 
forces,  the  forces  of  Nature  and  the  forces  of  the  human 
heart,  and  forming  out  of  them  a  love  in  harmony  with 
Plato's  thought  and  Raphael's  brush. 

In  their  dealings  with  Nature,  the  platonists  sought 
above  all  to  elevate  and  sentimentalise  it ;  they  did  not  care 
for  it  masculine  and  stern,  but  wished  it  feminine. 

They  did  not  ask  it  to  express  itself  in  vast  horizons,  in 
a  display  of  wild  vigour.  Untamed  Nature  displeased 
them;  it  struck  them  as  a  tyrannical  mechanism  which 
would  keep  moving  and  straining  itself  without  definite 
purpose,  whilst  it  should  be  influenced  and  controlled 
by  human  thought.  On  the  contrary,  the  more  supple 
Nature  became, — the  more  docile,  urbane,  almost  affec- 
tionate— the  better  she  answered  their  expectations. 
They  did  not  appreciate  the  objects  of  Nature;  but  they 
valued  a  beautiful  sunny  day,  a  beautiful  horizon,  the 
flowers  which  scent  the  air,  the  glistening,  rippling,  soothing 
sea,  the  buds  bursting  with  sap  and  life,  because  this  life  is 
one  with  man's.  Plato  has  indicated  the  need  he  felt  of 
such  a  setting  in  the  celebrated  prologue  of  the  Phaedrws, 
where  Socrates  and  his  friend,  strolling  along  the  bank  of 
the  Ilissus,  seat  themselves  near  a  temple  of  the  Muses,  in 
the  shade  of  a  lofty  plane-tree,  on  one  of  those  velvet 
swards  in  which  every  footstep  leaves  its  trace.  Stirred 
by  the  fierce  heat  of  the  glowing  sun,  life  buzzes  and 
sings  on  all  sides ;  the  murmur  of  water  mingles  with  the 
chirp  of  grasshoppers  and  innumerable  confused  dronings; 
odours  of  all  kinds  fill  the  air,  and  life  is  quaffed  in  deep 
draughts ;  but  amid  all  these  myriad  voices  blending  into, 
one  grand  symphony  the  mind  of  the  philosopher  reigns 
supreme. 

Man,  then,  must  in  no  way  be  considered  the  enemy  of 
Nature;  he  is  her  friend  and  master.  Nature  speaks  to  us, 
and  we  speak  to  her,  and  are  subject  to  her  influence  in  the 
highest  degree.  Not  merely  do  climate,  temperature,  the 
beauties  of  the  scenery  exercise  a  paramount  influence 
upon  us,   as  the   monks   so   well   understood   who  loved 

Q 


242      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

extensive  horizons  and  noble  summits,  but  it  may  be  said 
that  there  is  not  a  tree  or  a  plant  but  influences  us  by  its 
vicinage.  The  love  of  Nature  emits  a  radiance  like  the 
love  of  a  woman,  like  all  love,  though  in  a  less  degree.  It 
is  good  then  and  right  not  to  neglect  so  important  a  source 
of  emotion.  Nature  herself  delights  us  because  she  smiles 
on  us  and  we  feel  she  loves  us, — because  a  higher  power 
settles  her  proud  rocks  and  governs  her  volcanic  fires. 
How  pleasant  it  is  (especially  in  warm  countries)  to  shape 
for  ourselves  in  the  broad  world,  too  vast  for  us,  a  private 
and  particular  nook :  to  send  our  very  selves,  as  it  were,  out 
through  the  woods  by  straight  paths  which  make  our  will 
felt  far  away ;  to  give  the  flowers  what  forms  and  tints  we 
please ;  to  impress  our  character  upon  everything ;  thus  we 
banish  all  savour  of  imperfection  and  ugliness  and  allow 
nothing  to  be  seen  but  uniformity  and  affection ;  for,  in  the 
words  of  a  man  of  that  time,  if  you  go  into  the  country,  it 
is  not  to  "  descend  from  light  into  the  gloom." 

Salut !  palais,  jardins,  paradis  de  d61ices, 
Dont  lea  beaultez  font  ignorer  les  vices.1 

Under  these  circumstances,  ladies,  philosophers,  and  pre- 
lates considered  the  country  a  perfect  setting  for  the 
intellectual  life.  They  there  got  deeper,  intenser  spiritual 
enjoyment  than  in  the  city  (though  city  life  in  those  days 
was  not  such  a  rush  and  bustle  as  it  is  to-day).  The  dread 
hours  of  solitude  will  themselves  contribute  to  this  pleasure 
if  you  know  how  to  bring  a  delightful  egotism  unobtrusively 
into  play ;  they  will  enable  you  to  recall  many  fleeting 
thoughts,  to  ruminate  on  them,  feast  on  them  for  your 
sole  pleasure,  in  the  spirit  of  the  sublime  preoccupation  of 
Lucullus  when  he  chanced  one  day  to  be  dining  alone :  "  Is 
not  Lucullus  entertaining  Lucullus  to-day  ? "  We  find, 
then,  in  the  country  the  same  mise-en-sc&ne  as  in  the  town 
— the  same  furniture,  the  same  plate,  but  ranged  under  the 
luminous  ceiling  of  a  summer  sky ;  the  same  dances,  but  by 
the  light  of  torches  and  the  stars.2    All  Nature  breathes  and 

1  Margaret  of  France. 

All  hail !  ye  gardens,  mansions,  Edens  of  delight, 
Whose  comeliness  and  beauty  put  your  vices  out  of  sight  I 

*  See  the  frescoes  in  the  Borromeo  palace  at  Milan. 


THE  EMBROIDERY  OF  LIFE  243 

thinks:  the  trees,  artistically  shaped,  hang  their  sombre 
drapery  behind  statues  j  charming  walks  wind  or  disappear 
among  labyrinths  of  laurel,  thyme,  and  rosemary ;  a  cascade 
leaps  lightly  and  with  musical  bickering  from  a  tiny 
artificial  rock,  and  speeds  away  swiftly  but  noiselessly  into 
the  miniature  presentment  of  a  well-mown  meadow.  Or  if 
the  owner's  wealth  is  equal  to  measuring  itself  royally 
against  Nature,  he  adoros  the  landscape  with  splendid 
villas,  the  glory  of  Rome,  like  the  Este  villa  at  Tivoli,  a  sort 
of  proof  before  letters  of  Versailles,  so  moving  still  in  the 
spectral  life  of  its  deserted  groves,  its  silent  fountains,  its 
shattered  marbles. 

We  must  note,  too,  the  singular  phenomenon  that  the 
urbanity  and  bountifulness  of  Nature  appeared  to  these 
lovers  of  beauty  a  thing  of  course.  Nature  is  loved  for 
herself  only  in  countries  where  she  plays  the  step-dame. 
Lombards,  Frenchmen,  Englishmen,  on  leaving  the  smoky 
scenes  of  their  daily  toil,  did  not  shrink  from  a  life  in  the 
depths  of  a  dull  place  in  the  country,  or  from  intercourse 
with  the  rustics ;  they  might  be  seen  any  day  chatting  and 
whiling  away  an  idle  hour  with  the  farmers  on  the  village 
green.  At  Paris  people  were  passionately  fond  of  natural 
flowers,  the  annual  consumption  of  which  was  valued  by 
statisticians  at  fifteen  thousand  golden  crowns  ;  even  the 
University  preferred  them  to  paper  garlands.1  The  people 
of  the  south,  on  the  contrary,  spoilt  children  of  a  soil  which 
yields  fruit  of  itself,  trampled  roses  and  violets  beneath 
their  feet  with  never  a  thought  of  gathering  them.  The 
Italian  painters  used  to  adorn  manuscripts  with  elaborate 
golden  scrolls ;  the  ladies  framed  their  faces  in  gold  and 
pearls,  and  valued  flowers  only  for  the  delicate  softness  of 
their  perfume ;  many  of  them  strewed  lilies  and  roses  and 
violets  about  their  bowers,  as  the  quintessence  of  sweetness. 
But  everyone  abhorred  a  country  life.  Castiglione  has  only 
one  word  for  the  existence  of  gentlemen-farmers :  "  It  is 
indecent."  As  for  Margaret  of  France,  she  could  find  no 
stronger  abuse,  no  more  expressive  appellation  for  a  froward 
heart  than :  "  0  rough  heart,  rural  and  bucolic." 

Nor  would  one  expect  to  find  a  liking  for  animals  among 
the  platonists.  Ladies  valued  only  the  boudoir  pet,  the 
little  affectionate,  obedient  animal,  their  very  own,  which 

1[In  allusion  to  the  wreaths  used  at  the  ceremony  of  laureation.] 


244      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

meekly  took  their  kisses  and  upon  which  they  lavished 
without  misgiving  a  portion  of  their  tenderness  :  a  bird  for 
instance,  or  a  pug.  I  say  a  pug,  for  there  ww  seldom  more 
than  one.  What  was  the  good  of  a  troop  of  snaggy  animals 
however  graceful,  like  those  which  fill  the  canvases  of 
Veronese?  A  lady  much  preferred  her  one  little  lapdog, 
which  she  carried  on  her  arm  against  her  heart,  took  to  bed 
with  her,  and  had  painted  in  her  own  portrait.  "  Love  me, 
love  my  dog."  Titian's  Venus  of  the  Prado  is  nude,  but 
she  keeps  the  indispensable  ornaments — a  pearl  necklace, 
a  musical  instrument,  and  a  little  dog.  Margaret  in  writ- 
ing to  M.  de  Montmorency1  tells  him  gaily  that  she  is 
looking  after  her  niece's  "  belongings,"  that  is,  "  her  parrot 
and  her  daughters."  The  death  of  the  darling  bird  or  the 
little  pug  was  a  cruel  event.  What  tears  were  shed !  So 
faithful  a  little  dog !  How  many  men  might  have  learned 
a  lesson  from  him  !  Friends  could  hardly  venture  to  speak 
of  the  fleas  of  the  demised,  or  the  hair  that  he  dropped  all 
around,  or  the  other  objects  which  his  mistress  might 
perhaps  find  for  her  affection. 

People  did  not  care  for  flocks  and  herds,  except  perhaps 
as  a  distant  ornament  of  the  landscape.  The  King  of 
Naples  and  the  Cardinal  of  Amboise  kept  peacocks  and 
stags.  Anne  of  France  founded  a  sort  of  Zoological  Garden 
in  which  she  acclimatised  turkeys  and  bred  parrots.  But 
that  had  nothing  to  do  with  aesthetics. 

From  country  life  we  naturally  proceed  to  the  grave 
question  of  the  utility  of  physical  exercises  for  women — a 
question  much  more  difficult  to  decide  than  appears  at  first 
sight.  Suppose  a  number  of  old-style  French  chatelaines, 
sun-baked,  inured  to  the  inclemencies  of  the  weather, 
dashing  huntswomen,  had  been  asked  to  relinquish  violent 
exercises  like  hunting,  fencing,  boxing,  tennis,  on  the  ground 
that  to  indulge  in  them  was  to  waste  their  charm  ?  They 
would  have  ridiculed  the  idea.  And  yet,  after  mature 
deliberation,  the  Urbino  coterie  decided  that  these  exercises 
were  altogether  incompatible  with  the  feminine  tempera- 
ment. 

1  [Anne  de  Montmorency,  the  coarse,  violent  Constable  of  France,  who 
mumbled  his  prayers  and  his  orders  to  his  men  together,  because,  as 
BrantOme  says,  "  he  was  so  conscientious  that  he  always  tried  to  combine 
the  two  duties. "] 


THE  EMBROIDERY  OF  LIFE  245 

One  had  to  come  to  Lyons  to  find  a  pretty  and  clever 
woman  like  Louise  Labe  posing  as  Bradamante  or  Marphise, 
and  boasting  of  her  riding  and  her  skill  with  the  lance.  Every 
well-born  Italian  woman  detested  such  mannish  ways. 
When  Charles  VIII.  arrived  at  Naples,  the  princess  of 
Melphi,  to  humour  the  barbarian's  tastes,  presented  to  him 
her  daughter  on  horseback,  but  mounted  in  such  a  manner 
"as  not  to  do  wrong  to  her  sex."  Here  there  is  a  problem 
in  pure  aesthetics.  Not  that  women  like  Isabella  d'Este 
and  others  are  deficient  in  energy ;  when  need  arises  they 
will  give  proof  of  an  extraordinary  vigour;  Margaret  of 
France,  in  her  passion  for  serving  her  brother,  bestrode  a 
horse  and  galloped  to  the  Spanish  frontier  with  a  speed  and 
endurance  that  the  postal  service  has  rarely  attained.  But 
if,  impelled  by  strong  feeling,  they  accomplished  feats  like 
this,  they  did  not  boast  of  them.  What  charm  would 
Margaret  with  all  her  heroism  have  for  us  if  we  had  to  see 
her  flying  with  loose  rein  astraddle  on  her  nag?  It  is 
impossible  to  cite  a  military  woman  of  a  more  energetic 
temperament  than  Catherine  Sforza:  when  did  she  shrink 
from  sleeping  on  the  bare  ground  and  passing  her  nights  in 
the  open  air  ?  Yet  this  was  the  lady  who,  when  she  had  a 
minute's  peace,  solemnly  dispatched  a  Jewish  old-clo'  man 
to  her  neighbours,  to  discover  for  her  a  certain  down  for 
bed-ticks  which  was  reputed  exceptionally  soft. 

The  very  decided  disfavour  in  which  physical  exercises 
were  held  by  women  had  its  counterpart  among  the  men, 
and  very  largely  diminished  their  ardour  for  anything  in 
the  way  of  sport  or  athletics.  Even  at  the  court  of  Julius 
II.  a  young  cardinal  was  mercilessly  chaffed  because,  instead 
of  showing  his  visitors  his  books,  coins,  or  pictures,  he 
hurried  them  off  to  a  jumping-match  in  his  garden !  In 
France  the  taste  for  violent  exploits  utterly  died  out,  at 
least  in  court  circles.  When  ladies  were  by,  there  was 
much  talk,  in  language  borrowed  from  the  romances,  about 
the  virtue  of  arms  and  the  nobility  of  valour,  and  as  they 
spoke  the  striplings  brandished  inoffensive  swords.  Tourna- 
ments were  in  favour  as  a  show  adapted  to  captivate  ladies' 
eyes,  and  purely  decorative — barring  accidents!  Some  in 
silver  habits,  others  in  red,  green,  and  blue,  the  combatants 
would  make  a  few  passes,  and  when  they  had  done,  the 
victor,  followed  by  his  pages,  galloped  all  round  the  fine- 


246      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

sanded  lists,  to  receive  his  meed  of  applause.  After  all,  the 
ladies  had  little  appreciation  for  this  relic  of  barbarism; 
they  did  not  see  the  philosophic  necessity  of  equipping  one- 
self with  lance  and  steed  to  run  the  grand  prix  of  life ;  in 
their  view  that  prize  was  called  "repose  and  sovereign 
joy  " ;  and  that  is  not  won  at  a  gallop. 

The  question  of  the  chase  gave  rise  to  somewhat  various 
opinions.  Hunting,  like  war,  gave  man  pleasure;  to  him 
it  was  a  noble  and  sacred  occupation,  since  its  end  was 
the  shedding  of  blood, — a  point  in  which  it  displeased 
the  platonists.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  man  is  a  born 
fighter,  and  he  should  only  be  encouraged  to  work  off  his 
combativeness  against  animals  created  precisely  to  be 
slaughtered  by  him.  There  is  nothing  criminal  in  the 
trade  of  butcher,  and  it  is  far  better  to  kill  an  ox  than  a 
man,  a  boar  than  an  ox.  The  chase  was  thus  a  valuable 
expedient. 

But  in  an  age  of  such  exquisite  refinement,  when  the 
infinite  sweetness  of  the  Beautiful  came  at  length  to 
penetrate  men  to  the  very  marrow,  people  became  more 
fastidious,  and  asked  themselves  if  any  brilliant  idea  could 
be  derived  from  the  chase,  or  if  it  was  not  a  sufficient 
concession  to  the  animal  spirits  to  ramble  about  casually, 
to  take  the  air  without  excuses,  and  to  go  out  riding  under 
the  eyes  of  the  ladies,  even  though  too  manifestly  like  a 
groom  exercising  his  cob.  Perhaps  that  would  have  been 
better. 

But  the  chase  was  popular  at  Rome. 

The  hunts  in  the  Roman  Campagna  were  of  old  renown. 
The  deer  there  was  reputed  very  fleet,  and  the  boar  a 
particularly  tough  customer ;  the  hounds  belonged  to  those 
idolised  and  sagacious  breeds  which  could  not  be  bought  at 
any  price,  and  whose  whelps  were  begged  for  by  princesses 
and  potentates  with  absolute  servility.1     Further,  in  default 

1 "  Most  illustrious  and  excellent  lady,  most  respected  madam,"  wrote  the 
countess  of  Forli  to  the  duchess  of  Ferrara:  "the  credible  accounts  and 
perfect  information  brought  in  by  innumerable  persons  about  the  extreme 
kindliness  and  rare  munificence  of  your  excellency,  inspire  me  with  the 
boldness  to  address  you  in  confidence.  I  know  that  the  most  illustrious 
lord  your  spouse  and  your  most  illustrious  ladyship  adore  hunting  and 
birds,  and  that  you  always  have  in  abundance  dogs  of  all  kinds,  excellent, 
perfect.  T  beseech  your  excellency  very  earnestly  that  you  would  deign  to 
make  me  <t  very  beautiful  and  very  precious  present,  namely,  a  pair  of 
greyhounds,  well  trained  and  fleet-footed,  for  the  deer  of  the  Campagna, 


THE  EMBROIDERY  OF  LIFE  247 

of  military  pomp,  the  glory  of  the  chase,  material  as  it  was, 
seemed  essential  to  the  political  interests  of  the  papacy, — and 
consequently  to  the  interests  of  religion, — with  respect  to  cer- 
tain eminent  personages  more  accessible  to  such  arguments 
than  to  those  of  theology ;  and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
the  Roman  prelates,  unfortunately  for  themselves,  were 
politicians  as  well  as  devotees  of  art.  While  closely  allying 
themselves  with  women,  they  had  to  reckon  with  men.  The 
hunt  organised  by  Paul  II.  for  Borso  d'Este  in  1471  has 
remained  justly  celebrated  in  the  annals  of  the  church.  It 
was  therefore  less  a  question  of  slaying  animals  than  of 
saving  souls,  and  it  may  be  said  that  in  this  respect  the 
chase  conduced  towards  a  spiritual  end. 

The  great  Popes  of  the  Renaissance,  however,  were  some- 
what lukewarm  in  cultivating  it.  Alexander  VI.,  though  an 
excellent  horseman,  was  but  an  infrequent  and  inexpert 
huntsman.  Julius  II.  went  out  into  the  rich  vinelands 
rarely,,  if  at  all ;  for,  born  of  a  sea-faring  stock,  he  preferred 
to  cast  his  nets  into  the  deep  like  St.  Peter.  Leo  X.  rode 
more,  owing  to  threatenings  of  obesity ;  he  hunted  with 
application  and  brilliance,  and  with  his  habitual  love  of 
perfection,  but  without  that  quality  which  makes  hunting 
an  art,  that  indefinable  something  which  hunters  call  the 
"  sacred  fire  "  or  the  "  devil  may  care  "  spirit,  and  the  friends 
of  the  Beautiful  call  love.  He  was  a  Florentine,  and  mani- 
festly did  not  regard  the  hunter's  role  as  a  fine  one ;  he 
could  not  imagine  that  to  spur  a  horse  was  to  stimulate  one's 
ideas.  To  men  of  his  stamp  Nature  was,  so  to  speak,  truly 
feminine ;  they  would  have  liked  to  put  her  under  glass. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  number  of  prelates  revived  the  chase 
with  their  enthusiasm;  they  portrayed  it  in  their  poetry; 
they  brought  to  it  all  their  gravity,  urbanity,  and  decorum. 
When  the  ancient  walls  of  pagan  Rome  or  the  limestone 
benches  of  the  Coliseum  were  blushing  under  the  first  rays 
of  dawn,  or  when  the  old  triumphal  arches  were  looking 

which  are  very  swift :  a  couple  of  good  deer-hounds  and  a  couple  of  hand- 
some pointers,  so  good  that  I  may  hope  to  say  regarding  their  exploits 
when  they  catch  their  quarry,  'these  are  the  dogs  the  most  illustrious 
duchess  of  Ferrara  gave  me.'  I  know  that  your  excellency  will  not  send 
me  anything  but  what  is  really  good."  She  cordially  recommends  to  the 
duchess  the  falconer  she  is  sending,  to  fetch  the  hounds,  and  probably  to 
choose  them.  (Letter  of  Catherine  Sforza  to  the  duchess  of  Ferrara, 
1481). 


248      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

young  again  under  the  smile  of  the  Sabine  mountains,  a 
brilliant  procession  set  the  pontifical  flagstones  ringing 
under  their  horses'  hoofs.  Look  at  these  great  figures  who 
are  passing.  Here  is  the  proud  Catherine  Sforza;  Tebaldeo, 
the  poet  skilful  in  following  the  forest  tracks;  Pontanus,  the 
methodical  huntsman, the  taciturn  philosopher;  the  pride  of 
Venice,  the  sprightly  Bembo,  somewhat  excited,  for  he  wishes 
to  "  stick  "  the  boar  and  cut  off  its  head,  and  therewith  to  do 
honour  to  the  Virgin  of  the  woods,  "  in  verses  which  will  go 
down  to  posterity."  Here  is  the  fair  Lucretia  Borgia,  "  the 
glory  of  her  race,"  and,  in  close  attendance,  Ercole  Strozzi, 
just  writing  for  her  his  great  poem  called  The  Chase, 
a  medley  of  venery  and  politics.  Who  next  ?  Here  is  the 
omnipotent  Ascanio  Sforza,  vice-chancellor  of  the  Roman 
church,  all  impetuosity,  full  of  the  boyish  animation  which  he 
will  retain  through  the  most  cruel  trials  till  that  day 
when  he  goes  to  his  long  rest  in  the  church  of  Santa  Maria 
del  Popolo.  Behind  him  comes  cardinal  Adriano  Castelli, 
the  witty  diplomatist  who  wins  all  hearts,  the  admirable 
humanist  who  is  going  to  celebrate  this  chase.  These  ladies 
and  prelates  sing  the  praises  of  Diana ;  it  seems  to  them 
that  the  noble  goddess  in  person  is  guiding  their  long 
cavalcade  among  the  tombs,  in  the  impressive  silence  of  this 
great  Roman  desert  where  long  aqueducts  (odd  vegetation  !) 
lend  sombre  decoration  to  the  landscape. 

Her  broidered  chlaniys  she  has  raised  ; 
Her  golden  locks  float  in  the  breeze, 
The  purple  buskins  reach  her  knees  ; 
Her  gilded  quiver's  ringing  sound 
"Wakes  echoes  in  the  woods  around. 
Ascanio,  courteous,  debonair, 
Rides  close  to  show  her  every  care  ; 
Collects  the  troop,  on  Lybian  steeds, 
And  harks  them  forth  to  doughty  deeds. 

View  halloo  !  The  boar  is  started  at  the  foot  of  the  hills, 
the  hounds  are  off,  the  hunters  scatter  and  gallop  up  hill  and 
down  dale,  dogged  and  indefatigable.  Presently,  shouts, 
bayings,  howls  of  wounded  dogs !  All  is  over.  Cardinal 
Ascanio  appears,  with  flaming  eye  and  flaming  cheeks,  his 
coat  red,  his  knife  redder  still,  near  the  boar  dripping  red. 
This  is  the  epical,  the  intoxicating  moment.  The  hounds 
tumble  over  each  other,  the  whippers-in  bestir  themselves, 


THE  EMBROIDERY  OF  LIFE  249 

the  hunters  come  panting  up  from  all  directions.  Suddenly- 
all  is  hushed ;  as  if  by  magic  an  exquisite  repast  is  served  ; 
the  sweet  measured  tones  of  guitars,  the  voices  of  singers, 
the  plaudits  of  the  banqueters  alone  wake  the  languid 
echoes,  while  huge  flagons  of  a  generous  wine  go  round. 
Then  Cardinal  Castelli  rises,  and  in  his  elegant  Latin 
recites  a  Pindaric  ode  in  honour  of  the  victorious  huntsman, 
■  the  empurpled  senate's  glory  and  grace."  Nothing  could 
be  more  piously  orthodox  or  more  delightful  than  this 
hunting  ode.  The  Cardinal  recalls  how  the  Redeemer, 
"true  religion's  lord  and  emperor,"  has  put  vain  deities 
to  flight  and  given  solace  to  perishing  humanity,  bringing 
life  and  strength'  and  joy.  Ascanio  responds  with  this 
invocation : 

O  Dian,  virgin  goddess  of  the  woods  and  groves, 

Or  whether  it  behoves 

To  bail  Proserpina,  light  of  the  glooming  sky, 

Lucina,  Hecate,  or  e'en 

Of  the  dim  nether  world  the  woful  queen, 

Dictynua  else,  or  Trivia — whosoe'er 

Dost  to  my  swinking  hours  apply 

Thy  constant  care, 

Thee  in  my  heart  I  hold  eternally  ! 

Evening  creeps  on,  and  the  shadows  extend.  Soon  the 
joyous  clatter  of  hoofs  is  re-echoing  along  the  Sacred  Way  ; 
these  are  the  masters  of  Rome,  whom  the  shades  of  Tiberius 
and  Constantine  salute  in  the  darkness. 

While  at  Rome  the  chase  was  thus  allying  itself  with 
poetry,  in  France,  as  may  be  surmised,  it  followed  no  such 
bent.  The  good  Louis  XII.,  ruling  with  circumspection, 
would  not  have  been  hard  put  to  it  to  give  his  exploits 
a  character  of  seriousness  and  tranquillity,  for  his  health 
obliged  him  to  hunt  in  a  litter,  and  more  often  with  hawks 
than  with  hounds ;  indeed,  even  at  the  kennels  of  Blois  the 
spirit  of  poetry  modestly  crept  in ;  the  court  poets,  not 
having  at  their  disposal  the  Roman  mythology,  or  the 
shades  of  Tiberius  and  Constantine,  extolled  the  royal 
hawks  and  hounds.  They  honoured  with  a  charming 
epitaph  the  venerable  Chailly,  doyen  of  the  pack,  and  a 
model  of  probity  and  honour,  who,  after  having  followed 
the  king  even  to  war,  had  peacefully  finished  his  course  at 
the  feet  of  Queen  Anne.     They  sang  also  of  the  famous 


250      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

falcon  Muguet,  the  terror  of  herons,  "  little  of  body  but 
wondrous  lull  of  courage  "  : 

Trois  passetemps  parfaits  a  eu  Louis  douzieme : 
Triboulet  et  Cnaillj,  et  je  fus  le  troisieme.1 

But  all  this  fine  poetry  only  celebrated  the  mettlesomeness 
of  the  animals ;  it  did  not  protect  the  game  from  slaughter; 
it  left  hunting  with  its  primitive  characteristics,  which 
continued  to  wound  the  finer  feelings,  and  snuffed  out  the 
faintest  glimmer  of  the  spiritual  life. 

One  man  was  found,  with  the  heroic  determination  to 
reform  the  French  style  of  hunting  in  the  Roman  direction. 
This  man  was  Guillaume  Bude\  generall}'  known  as  the 
founder  of  the  College  of  France,  but  as  good  a  hunter  as  a 
Hellenist,  and  in  this  regard  as  worthy  of  renown. 

Bude"  is  a  brilliant  example  of  the  intellectual  develop- 
ment of  many  men  of  his  generation.  Come  of  a  line  of 
high  officials,  he  went  through  the  usual  experiences  :  a 
tutor,  fashionable  masters,  a  special  Greek  tutor,  one  George 
Hermonymos,  brought  direct  from  Lacedaemonia  to  teach 
him  to  lisp  the  Greek  alphabet  at  the  remuneration  of  five 
hundred  crowns  monthly;  but  Lefevre  d'Etaples2  did  not 
succeed  in  making  a  philosopher  of  him,  nor  Fra  Giocondo3 
a  mathematician.  Then,  after  lolling  for  a  while  on  the 
long-suffering  benches  of  the  Orleans  University  of  Law, 
Bude'  resigned  himself  to  run  in  the  paternal  grooves;  apart 
from  hunting,  he  was  not  known  to  have  any  accomplish- 
ment or  passion  except  fishing.  So  he  went  to  Rome  as 
secretary  to  an  embassy  at  the  time  of  the  election  of 
Julius  II.  This  proved  the  turning-point  of  his  life.  The 
aesthetic  splendour  of  Rome  struck  him  and  held  him  spell- 
bound ;  he  experienced  the  electric  shock,  the  complete 
change    of    view    which    the    sudden    revelation    of    the 

1  King  Louis  Twelfth  had  perfect  pastimes  three  : 
Triboulet  first,  then  Chailly,  lastly  me. 
The  author  has  collected  the  various  pieces,  still  unpublished,  in  which 
these  hounds  and  hawks  of  Louis  are  celebrated. 

2  [Professor  of  mathematics  and  philosophy  at  the  Cardinal  Lemoine 
college  at  Paris  (1455-1537):  a  broad-minded  man,  the  quarry  of  a  heresy 
hunt :  chosen  by  Francis  I.  as  tutor  to  his  son  Charles.] 

3  [Architect  and  antiquary  of  Verona  (1445-1525).  He  spent  eight  years 
in  France  at  the  invitation  of  Louis  XII.,  designing  bridges  and  buildings: 
he  was  afterwards  one  of  the  architects  of  St.  Peter's  at  Rome.] 


THE  EMBROIDERY  OF  LIFE  251 

spirit  of  beauty  has  from  all  time  occasioned  in  choice 
minds.  He  came  back  a  changed  man.  He  became  an 
apostle  of  beauty ;  he  resigned  his  diplomatic  appointments, 
and  his  office  as  secretary  to  the  king ;  he  even  refused 
a  comfortable  retreat  on  the  bench,  in  order  to  devote  him- 
self to  that  noble  intellectual  life,  the  radiance  of  which  had 
filled  his  soul. 

He  gave  up  everything  except  hunting.  And  it  was 
then  that  he  had  to  face  the  trying  problem  that  rose  in  his 
mind  with  peculiar  intensity — how  to  spiritualise  the  chase. 

The  solution  he  arrived  at  was  of  the  most  original  kind. 
He  has  communicated  it  to  us  in  the  form  of  a  conversation, 
real  or  imaginary,  between  himself  and  King  Francis  I. 
This  dialogue  attained  a  measure  of  popularity;  written 
in  Latin  (following  the  Roman  fashion),  it  had  the  honour 
of  being  translated  by  the  great  court  translator,  Louis  Le 
Roy,  and  in  our  time  has  been  re-published  by  M.  Chevreul. 

Bude"s  idea  was  wonderfully  simple,  and  nicely  calculated, 
he  thought,  to  make  an  impression  on  Francis  I.  The  king 
was  not  very  clever1,  but  he  was  very  willing  to  learn,  and 
had  great  confidence  in  the  new  ideas,  particularly  those  of 
his  friend. 

Bude*  merely  suggested  the  adoption  of  Latin  as  the 
language  of  venery.  At  first  sight,  Francis  did  not  quite 
catch  the  piquancy  of  this  proposal ;  however,  he  made  no 
opposition ;  and  discovered  on  reflection,  indeed,  that  it  hit 
the  mark  admirably.  Certain  persons  were  agitating  for  the 
suppression  of  Latin  in  law  proceedings,  with  the  professed 
object  of  rendering  them  more  comprehensible :  here  was  an 
excellent  means  of  silencing  the  agitators,  by  showing  them 
that  Latin,  if  it  can  serve  for  the  slang  of  the  turf,  can  serve 
for  anything. 

History  does  not  relate  whether  Francis  halloed  his 
hounds  in  Latin  verse;  but  the  seed  dropped  by  Bude' 
was  not  lost,  and  another  scholar,  Michelangelo  Blando, 
the  commentator  on  Aristotle  and  Hippocrates,  took  up  the 
same  subject  as  a  second  study.  In  a  learned  Latin 
treatise  on  hunting,  Blando  shows  how  important  it  is  for 
the  huntsmen  to  be  men  of  literary  culture ;  for  their  benefit 
he  investigates  every  branch  of  canine  lore  from  the  earliest 
times  :  breeds,  regimen,  maladies,  training — on  all  these 
points  he  admirably  collects  the  various  threads  of  tradition. 


/ 


252      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Nor  does  he  forget  the  lives  of  the  most  illustrious  of 
hunters  down  to  and  including  Francis  I.  Among  these, 
naturally,  he  makes  honourable  mention  of  a  number  of 
noble  ladies  who  were  ardent  devotees  of  the  chase,  and 
with  whom  the  sport  almost  always  meant  a  dedication  of 
their  virginity ;  for  example,  the  fair  Atalanta,  who  dis- 
dained marriage;  Calixto,  daughter  of  a  king  of  Arcadia; 
Arethusa,  daughter  of  the  Centaur  Hippochrome;  Amimone, 
a  Breton  nymph,  daughter  of  Danaus ;  and  a  thousand  other 
vestals  whom  it  is  unnecessary  to  recall,  says  he,  "being 
household  words  with  all  hunters  worthy  of  the  name." 
After  such  an  enumeration,  one  might  indeed  be  tempted  to 
believe  that,  for  women  at  any  rate,  the  chase  elevates  the 
soul  and  has  platonic  virtues. 

But,  all  this  notwithstanding,  the  lady  artists  in  charm 
did  not  think  it  deserved  either  encouragement  or  sympathy 
on  their  part.  In  what  respect  had  this  sport  any  moral 
efficacy?  It  had,  on  the  contrary,  the  disadvantage  of 
giving  a  woman  a  somewhat  masculine  appearance,  of 
diluting  in  her  all  that  constitutes  the  essence  of  platonic 
sweetness.1 

Riding  to  hounds  was  no  longer  indulged  in,  except  by 
some  few  over-energetic  and  rather  old-fashioned  ladies  like 
Margaret  of  Austria,  who  was  so  proud  of  her  stuffed 
wolves'  heads ;  or  Anne  of  France,  a  passionate  and  classical 
huntress,  whom  one  of  her  faithful  henchmen,  the  seneschal 
of  Normandy,  enthusiastically  styles  the  "  grand  mistress  " 

1  Kathin  alloit  bien  mont^e  a  la  chasse, 
Portant  espieu.     Cupido  la  pourchasse 
Avecques  son  arc,  et  luy  dit :  **  Combaton*, 
Puisqu'ainsi  est  que  nous  avons  bastons." 
Elle  respond  :  "  Amour,  que  penses  tu  ? 
Longtemps  y  a  que  je  t'ay  combatu 
Sans  estre  arm^e  :  a  present,  je  le  suis  ; 
Retourne-t-en,  et  plus  ne  me  poursuis, 
Car  seure  je  suis  que  tu  seroys  batu." 

(Michel  d'Amboise.) 

[Kitty  well  mounted  to  the  hunt  was  hying, 
Holding  a  spear  ;  Dan  Cupid  her  espying, 
Loosing  his  bow,  gave  chase  and  caught  her.     Said  he  : 
**  Come  let  us  fight,  since  both  are  armed  and  ready." 
Then  answered  she  :  "  Love,  art  thou  then  so  daring  ? 
Long  have  I  fought  thee,  weapon  never  bearing ; 
Now  am  I  armed,  turn,  never  more  pursue  me, 
For  I  would  beat  thee,  ere  thou  couldst  undo  me."] 


THE  EMBROIDERY   OF  LIFE  253 

of  this  "  glorious  trade " ;  but  whom  he  calls  also  its  last 
representative.  Anne  hunted  in  the  same  way  that  she  did 
everything ;  coldly  and  methodically  she  with  her  own  eyes 
examined  the  trail,  and  gave  the  word  to  hark  forward; 
then  she  set  off  with  her  dogs,  and  suddenly  warming  to 
the  work,  grew  animated  and  vociferous,  and  smartly 
handled  her  hunting-spear.  Such  ways  as  these  have 
caused  her  to  be  always  wrongly  judged,  even  by  her  closest 
friends,  and  have  given  her  a  reputation  for  mannishness, 
whereas  in  her  heart  of  hearts  she  was  infinitely  feminine, 
and  femininely  philosophic. 

The  large  majority  of  her  contemporaries  would  have 
been  careful  not  to  imitate  her,  and  if  they  resigned  them- 
selves to  the  chase,  it  was  for  some  good  reason.  Personally 
they  went  in  for  little  else  than  hawking.  It  was  indifferent 
to  them  whether  men  rode  out  and  effected  more  or  less 
slaughter ;  but  they  loved  the  associations  of  the  hunt — the 
delightful  evenings,  favourable  to  flirtation  (when  the 
hunters  were  not  too  hungry  or  sleepy) ;  the  succeeding 
days  of  tranquillity,  when  the  unconstraint  of  country  life 
allowed  them  to  rise  early  and  come  down  into  the  fresh  air 
without  stopping  to  do  up  their  hair  or  their  complexions, 
but  with  clear,  rosy  cheeks;  to  hurry  through  a  hunter's 
mass,  and  then  start  gossiping  in  the  shade  on  the  respective 
merits  of  dogs  and  birds  until  it  was  time  for  breakfast. 
In  short,  to  platonist  ladies,  the  less  hunting  there  was,  the 
more  genuine  and  admirable  the  chase  appeared.  If  men 
absolutely  insisted  on  spilling  blood,  why  not  get  it  over 
quickly  ?  Why  not  fill  their  parks  with  tame  stags  and 
one  fine  morning  go  out  and  massacre  a  few  ?  But  for 
pity's  sake  let  there  be  no  more  talk  of  their  Red  Indian 
stratagems,  or  of  competing  in  instinct  with  the  animals ! 
"  Tell  me,"  cries  Margaret  of  France,  "  is  the  capture  of  a 
stag  fit  work  for  a  prince  ?  " — he  might  as  well  turn  mason 
or  hind ! 

They  came  to  the  conclusion  that,  if  they  did  not  wish  to 
live  in  the  kennel,  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  give  up 
hunting,  and  this  was  more  logical  than  Bude"s  or  Blando's 
attempt  to  imbue  huntsmen  with  lofty  and  fantastic  ideas 
which  would  never  make  a  good  sportsman. 

Like  all  human  things,  the  charming  theories  we  have 
just  indicated  had  their  dark  side.    The  habit  of  suppressing 


254      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

nature,  of  making  her  all  grace  and  attractiveness,  of 
embellishing  and  transfiguring  her,  is  pretty  sure  to  lead  to 
the  loss  of  any  real  knowledge  of  nature.  A  landscape  is 
transformed  into  a  drawing-room.  Lemaire  de  Beiges  and 
others  discourse  to  us  of  nothing  but  branches  gently 
swaying,  rustling  leaflets,  the  waning  autumn,  huts  in 
which  mock  shepherds  in  sham  goat-skins  listen  to  the 
moaning  of  the  winter  wind  with  a  ravishment  which  it  is 
difficult  not  to  fancy  humbug  too.  If  only  this  mawkish 
sentimentality  always  led  to  the  ideal !  But  no ;  the  coy 
Phillises  sport  their  demure  little  tricks  at  all  hours  but 
the  lover's  hour,  when  perhaps  they  would  not  be  out  of 
place. 

The  fleshly  Venetian  school,  with  its  feeling  for  colour 
and  its  somewhat  pagan  naturalism,  much  more  successfully 
expressed  man's  relations  with  Nature.  It  opens  for  us  not 
a  mere  garden  bower,  but  a  huge  factory  of  sensuous 
pleasure,  whence  ascend  a  thousand  high-soaring  aspirations 
and  a  penetrating  effluence.  Giorgione  and  Titian  have 
wonderfully  rendered  the  poetry  of  these  love-filled  horizons. 
From  the  smooth  sea,  or  the  foaming  billows,  or  the  flowery 
meadows  depicted  by  their  pencils,  loud  voices  speak  to  us; 
and  nothing  but  the  old,  imaginative  mythology  is  wanted 
to  personify  all  the  unknowable  and  unknown  unions 
whence  we  feel  that  the  physical  world  is  every  day 
drawing  its  life  and  its  overmastering  thirst  for  renewal. 
The  epicureans  let  themselves  drift  along  aimlessly,  resting 
on  their  oars,1  and  do  no  more  than  sing  their  little  part, 
hardly  audible  in  this  colossal  orchestration.  The  platonists, 
on  the  other  hand,  will  not  allow  themselves  to  be  seduced, 
and  combat  nature  even  while  caressing  her,  preferring  to 
keep  her  too  much  in  subjection  rather  than  to  yield  her 
too  much  obedience.  Nature  untamed  or  sensual  would 
slay  man,  they  think.  She  is  a  slave,  meant  to  be  subject 
to  us,  meditating  revenge,  and  eager  to  suck  or  shed  our 
blood ;  and  she  is  set  among  the  slaves. 

Finally,  a  word  must  be  said  about  a  life  which  held  a 
place  midway  between  country  life  and  city  life,  namely, 
the  life  of  the  watering-places,  both  inland  and  by  the  sea. 
In   France   the   fashion   was   difficult    to   introduce,  good 

1Ship    of  Fools,  sixth   engraving.      Critics    almost    always    represent 
epicurism  in  a  boat. 


THE  EMBROIDERY   OF  LIFE  255 

society  preferring  the  large  and  comfortable  existence  of  the 
country  house ;  but  to  take  the  waters  was  all  the  rage  in 
Italy. 

Except  at  church,  there  was  no  scene  where  people  could 
better  meet  together,  or  take  one  another  more  seriously 
without  hypocrisy.  A  public  bath  represented  the  ideal  of 
equality.  You  go  in,  cut  a  figure,  and  come  out  again, 
and  Jack  is  as  good  as  his  master.  It  is  an  open  drawing- 
room,  in  which  people  who  elsewhere  are  strangers  to  one 
another,  acquaintances,  and  bosom  friends  all  have  one 
idea — to  distil  their  soul  drop  by  drop  into  the  ears  of 
kindred  spirits,  like  the  neighbouring  spring. 

The  difficulty  with  which  the  custom  became  acclimatised 
in  France  has  been  attributed  to  very  various  causes. 
Following  an  old  tradition,  many  preachers  so  late  as  the 
16th  century  inveighed  against  the  habit  of  bathing.  Out 
of  thirty  women  who  go  bathing,  says  one,  not  one  can  call 
herself  pure.  "  0  fatal  laving,  prolific  in  elements  of  death !" 
exclaims  another.  "  Ye  women  who  stew  yourselves,"  says 
Oliver  Maillard,1  "I  summon  you  all  to  the  stewpots  of 
Hell ! "  The  Calvinists  went  to  still  greater  lengths  of 
indignation,  and  more  than  one  physician,  even,  thought  well 
to  adopt  a  cautious  attitude.  At  the  end  of  a  long  treatise 
on  hygiene,  Gazius  says :  "  I  have  still  to  speak  about  the 
baths,  and  I  shall  do  so  briefly,  for  the  custom  of  bathing 
does  not  exist  among  us,  and  further,  it  is  a  pleasure  which 
is  not  devoid  of  danger ;  perhaps  it  would  be  better  not  to 
speak  of  it,  lest  I  should  appear  to  recommend  it.  For  my- 
self, I  have  never  taken  a  bath,  and  I  am  none  the  worse  for 
it,  thank  God ! "  However,  Gazius,  not  to  come  to  logger- 
heads with  the  ancients,  or  the  Arabs,  or  his  colleagues,  goes 
so  far  as  to  acknowledge  that  cold  water  is  in  use  "  in  very 
distinguished  countries "  ;  for  his  part,  he  sees  nothing 
objectionable  in  a  douche  followed  by  brisk  friction  or 
massage. 

But  we  must  get  to  the  bottom  of  this  matter,  a  question 
of  morals  rather  than  hygiene. 

We  have  unexpectedly  come  upon  principles  which  we 
recognise  as  old  acquaintances.  Neither  preachers  nor 
Calvinists  were  willing  to  admit  that  any  consideration  of 

1[A  Franciscan  friar  (1440-1508)  and  a  vigorous  and  racy  preacher.  His 
sermons  were  larded  with  buffooneries.] 


256      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

utility  could  induce  a  self-respecting  -woman  to  strip  herself 
of  all,  or  nearly  all,  her  clothes,  either  in  the  open  air  as  in 
ancient  times,  or  in  one  of  those  public  bathing  establish- 
ments which  were  cried  every  day  in  the  market-places 
between  the  artichokes  and  the  cheese,1  and  where 
the  authorities  winked  at  certain  familiarities.  Many 
historians  have  concluded  outright  that  Calvinists  and 
preachers  had  a  horror  of  water;  but  this  is  not  strictly 
accurate;  they  recommended  baths  at  home.  Thus  th« 
council  of  Basle  passed  a  canon  inviting  persons  to  set  bath- 
rooms in  their  houses.  The  platonists  fell  in  the  more 
heartily  with  the  council's  recommendation  in  that  they 
treated  their  bodies  with  sacerdotal  attentions,  so  to  speak, 
and  that  no  refinement  appeared  to  them  unreasonable  in 
forging  the  weapon  of  delightful  love.  Some  discriminating 
women  preferred  dry  methods  to  water — powders,  pastes, 
scraping  of  the  skin,  which  enabled  them  to  say  "that 
they  did  not  wash  their  hands";  but  the  majority  owed  a 
great  deal  to  water,  and  the  room  devoted  to  this  work  of 
regeneration  was  a  sanctuary.  The  little  bath-rooms  of  the 
18th  or  the  beginning  of  the  19th  century,  hung  all  round 
with  mirrors,  are  familiar  to  us.  The  idolatry  of  the  16th 
century  was  less  blatant  but  not  less  ardent ;  Raphael  him- 
self decorated  Bibbiena's  bath-room,  and,  as  we  know,  the 
subject  chosen  by  the  charming  prelate  for  his  frescoes  was 
the  story  of  Venus  and  Cupid. 

In  one  of  her  most  amusing  letters  Madame  de  Se'vigne^ 
bewails  the  necessity  of  taking  shower-baths  at  Vichy, 
which  she  regarded  as  a  "  humiliating "  situation  to  be  in. 
To  give  herself  courage,  she  conceived  the  singular  idea  of 

1  C'est  a  l'image  saincte  Jame 
Ou  se  vont  baigner  ces  femmes; 
Et  baignez,  et  estuvez,  allez. 
Bien  servies  vous  y  serez 
De  varletz,  de  chambriere, 
De  la  dame  bonne  chere. 
Allez  tost,  les  baings  sont  prestz. 

(Les  Cris  de  Paris.) 

[To  the  image  of  St.  James 
Go  for  bathing  these  fair  dames. 
Haste  ye,  ladies,  bathe  and  stew, 
Maids  and  varlets  wait  for  you, 
Service  good,  delightful  fare  ; 
The  baths  are  ready:  speed  ye  there.) 


THE  EMBROIDERY  OF  LIFE  257 

keeping  her  two  maids  with  her,  so  that  she  might  "  see 
familiar  faces."  At  the  same  time,  she  got  her  physician,  a 
man  of  parts,  to  conceal  himself  behind  a  curtain,  so  that  she 
might  chat  with  him  during  the  operation. 

We  do  not  know  what  the  impressions  of  Madame  de 
Sevigne°s  descendants  are,  but  we  know  that  her  ancestresses 
were  on  this  point  extremely  fastidious.  Margaret  of  France, 
not  to  lose  sight  of  the  story  of  the  chaste  Susanna,  had  it 
embroidered  on  a  table-cover. 

We  get  an  idea,  then,  of  the  cautious  attitude  adopted  in 
regard  to  hydrotherapeutics.  But  on  the  other  hand  the 
friends  of  antiquity  restored  water  to  a  place  of  honour ; 
scholars  proved  that  the  Romans  had  been  devoted  to  it; 
the  higher  clergy  became  its  apostles.  George  of  Amboise 
and  his  brothers  multiplied  the  spas  at  RoueD,  Blois,  Gaillon, 
Clermont,  as  the  pope  did  at  Rome. 

In  regard  to  mineral  springs,  there  appeared,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  pope  and  the  Venetian  senate,  a  large  folio 
official  guide,1  which  explained  that  there  were  waters  for 
all  sick  bodies  as  there  were  saints  for  all  sick  souls,2  but 
that  no  one  should  venture  to  them  without  seeking  advice 
in  the  proper  quarter. 

A  person  wishing  to  go  to  the  waters  would  consult  a 
physician.  If  he  was  a  specialist  like  Savonarola,  he  would 
look  at  everything  with  aquatic  prepossessions,  and  commence 
his  patient's  initiation  at  home  with  baths  of  various  kinds 
— baths  of  oil,  of  wine,  of  milk,  of  fire,  of  compressed  air. 
One  fine  morning  he  would  announce  that  mineral  waters 
were  spoilt  in  transit,  that  he  was  tired  of  making  the  patient 
drink  stale  water,  and  he  would  then  dispatch  him  to  some 
natural  spring. 

Most  of  the  Italian  springs,  at  any  rate  such  as  were  much 
frequented,  had  the  good  taste  to  flow  in  or  near  a  city,  and 

1  "A  work,  for  our  epoch,  in  which  the  use  of  mineral  waters  is  so  com- 
mon, very  useful  to  physicians,  but  still  more  to  all  other  persons,  and  very 
entertaining." 

2  For  example,  Lt  Bain  de  St  BartMlemy:  "A  man  of  Feltre  named 
Petrarch,  after  an  accident  to  his  knee,  having  been  attended  by  a  series  of, 
I  will  not  say  bone-setters  but,  bone-breakers,  experienced  the  keenest 
anguish  ;  a  flux  resulted :  astringents  and  cold  remedies  were  applied  ;  and 
an  induration  ensued,  which  compelled  him  always  to  walk  with  a  stick  or 
a  crutch.  At  the  end  of  two  years,  he  came  to  see  me ;  I  prescribed  the 
baths.  They  did  him  so  much  good  that  after  a  fortnight  he  left  for  home 
without  his  crutch."     {De  Balneia,  1563). 

R 


258      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

thus  people  were  likely  to  meet  familiar  faces,  if  only  among 
the  regular  visitors.  Under  Louis  XII.,  the  city  of  Genoa 
revolted  because  its  French  captain,  the  Sire  de  Roquebertin, 
instead  of  attending  to  business,  tiresome  certainly,  passed 
his  life  at  the  waters  of  Acqui. 

A  lady  of  distinction,  however,  first  of  all  secured  a  good 
escort  to  keep  her  company ;  Margaret  of  France,  for 
instance,  carried  her  whole  party  off  to  Cauterets.  Then 
she  had  to  listen  to  the  parting  exhortation  of  her  doctor,  a 
punctilious  and  intelligent  man,  who  apparently  had  no 
excessive  confidence  in  his  colleagues  or  his  fair  client,  and 
who  catechised  her  and  made  her  read  the  folio.  He 
mentioned  eight  enemies  lying  in  wait  for  her — headache, 
insomnia,  and  the  rest; — he  instructed  her  how, by  watchfully 
studying  her  little  secret  vices  and  never  for  a  moment  for- 
getting her  digestion,  and  so  on,  she  would  put  them  to 
rout.  Then  he  carefully  consulted  the  horoscope,  the  direc- 
tion of  the  wind,  the  temperature,  his  chart  of  epidemics ; 
he  assured  himself  as  to  the  character  of  the  year  (for 
there  were  some  years  in  which  the  waters  killed  off  the 
invalids  or  made  them  worse),  and  finally  he  pronounced 
the  exeat. 

Flinging  off  this  wet  blanket  with  his  terrestrial  visions, 
the  patient  sped  away.  Pity  if  it  was  towards  Porretta, 
near  Bologna,  a  very  popular  haunt  but  dreadfully  purga- 
tive. However,  the  spirit  of  Beauty  can  idealise  everything, 
and  an  agreeable  poet,  Battista  of  Mantua,  undertook  to 
show  all  the  moral  and  aesthetic  satisfaction  to  be  got  in 
drinking  three  glasses  of  a  laxative  water,  and  then  leaving 
Nature  to  herself. 

He  describes  this  regimen  in  admirable  verses : 

"  Far  from  the  bed  and  all  its  joys, 
You  go  and  come  and  eke  advance 
In  the  slow  measure  of  a  stately  dance," 

and  so  on. 

In  fact,  the  idea  of  becoming  young  again,  the  thought  of 
gaining  new  freedom  of  mind,  new  warmth  of  heart,  new 
suppleness  of  the  bodily  frame  by  sacrifices  so  slight,  of 
seeing  the  wrinkles  vanish  of  themselves,  in  short  the 
pursuit  of  beauty  as  a  bounden  duty,  threw  the  glamour  of 
poetry  over  many  things,  and  was  well  worth   the  self- 


THE  EMBROIDERY  OF   LIFE  259 

imposition  of  twenty-one  days  of  hardship.  For  all  that, 
fashionable  people  preferred  the  bathing-places  to  the  spas. 

Life  at  such  places  presented  the  admirable  advantage 
that  people  could  there  enjoy  the  most  perfect  liberty. 
Nowhere  were  there  better  opportunities  for  seeing  one's 
friends,  for  intimate  conversation,  for  deriving  real  profit 
from  companionship.  It  was  that  which  made  this  life  so 
precious.  A  man  who  had  followed  in  the  train  of  the 
princess  he  loved  had  absolutely  nothing  to  do  but  to 
devote  himself  to  her,  for  he  put  up  with  the  rubbings  and 
purgings  only  as  a  sop  to  his  conscience.  What  delightful 
opportunities  between  two  glasses  of  water  to  improve  the 
mind  or  tell  stories  !  Many  collections  of  Novelli  originated 
near  a  spring.  It  was  during  a  season  at  Lucca,  in  April 
1538,  that  Vittoria  Colonna  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Carnesecchi,  the  adventurous  theologian,  and  launched  out 
with  him  into  the  abstrusest  religious  speculations.  Every- 
one followed  his  own  bent,  and  the  gentlemen  who  did  not 
love  husbands  were  less  irked  there  than  elsewhere. 

We  shall  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  platonism  exercised 
undivided  sway  over  the  bathers  j1  but  to  have  a  place  at 
all  was  something  gained.  There  is  no  indication  that  a 
much  purer  virtue  reigned  north  of  the  Alps  among  the 
virtuous  races.  The  goings-on  at  Baden  in  Aargau  scan- 
dalised even  Brantome.  A  Florentine,2  who  thought  life  at 
Florence  pleasant  enough,  has  related  his  impressions  at 
Baden  with  a  na'ive  stupefaction ;  he  was  dumbfounded  the 
very  moment  he  arrived.  The  beautiful  platonism  of  his 
own  province,  flanked  always  by  jealous  husbands  and 
impedimenta  of  all  sorts,  appeared  to  him  mere  food  for 
babes,  a  phantom,  a  faded  flower,  an  unsubstantial  pageant, 
beside  those  Piccadilly  manners.  But  they  did  not  offend 
him  :  "  Bravo ! "  he  cries,  "  who  wouldn't  be  platonic,  since 
Plato  preaches  the  community  of  women?  Here  the 
husbands  take  everything,  absolutely  everything,  in  good 
part !  How  wonderfully  sensible  of  them !  These  Germans 
don't  rack  themselves  for  suspicions,  they  enjoy  the  present." 
And  then,  Florentine  as  he  is,  he  goes  on  to  describe  the 

1  Gregoroviu8  gives  in  his  Lucretia  Borgia  an  account  of  an  extremely 
free  f&te  got  up  at  Sienna  for  fair  bathers,  from  which  husbands  and  brothers 
were  excluded. 

2  Poggio. 


260      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

charms  of  Baden  with  genuine  enthusiasm :  the  handsome 
streets  in  which  never  a  sign  of  infirmity  is  to  be  seen 
(Baden  was  recommended  to  childless  women);  exquisite 
fine  ladies;  men  in  cloth  of  gold  and  silver;  somewhat 
exotic  beauties  sprung  from  God  knows  where,  attended  by 
a  lackey  and  one  or  two  waiting-maids ;  here  and  there  a 
few  noble  abbesses  of  reasonable  piety.  .  .  .  What  a 
whirl !     It  is  one  mad  race  for  pleasure ! 

Serious  people  who  take  care  of  themselves  and  desire  a 
cure,  have  two  or  three  baths  a  day,  living  like  so  many 
ducks.  For  ordinary  folk  there  are  common  swimming- 
baths  of  wonderful  picturesqueness,  but  every  respectable 
hostel  possesses  one  bath  for  men,  and  another  for  women, 
with  a  gallery  to  which  men  are  admitted  in  their  dressing- 
gowns.  To  describe  the  gaiety  that  reigns  there  is 
impossible.  There  is  chatting  and  laughter,  eating  and 
drinking,  dancing  in  a  ring ;  the  gentlemen  fling  down 
coins  which  the  fair  bathers  catch  with  the  tips  of  their 
fingers  or  in  their  linen  chemisettes,  with  much,  contor- 
tioning  and  struggling.  Sometimes,  when  the  company  are 
on  intimate  terms,  they  end  by  fraternising  in  a  single 
tank,  which  is  much  more  amusing,  and  pleases  the 
physicians,  because  nothing  ensures  more  conscientious 
bathing.     Honi  soit  qui  Trial  y  pense  ! 

In  the  evening  a  broad  meadow  serves  as  a  casino ;  there 
is  more  dancing  and  singing:  and  these  amusements  are 
mingled  with  various  pastimes  such  as  the  game  of  balle 
&  grelots}  which  leads  to  all  sorts  of  horse- play. 

That  is  Baden. 

One  singular  fact  is  brought  out.  Platonism  was  regarded 
as  nothing  if  not  complex  and  elaborate,  and  indeed  it 
believed  itself  to  be  such  ;  antiplatonism,  on  the  contrary, 
affected  airs  of  the  most  complete  simplicity :  yet  whenever 
the  two  are  confronted,  it  is  platonism  'hat  proves  the 
more  ingenuous. 

1  [The  balle  a  grdot  was  a  hollow  ball  of  metal  containing  something  that 
caused  a  jingle  when  the  ball  was  moved  or  thrown— like  our  horse-bells.] 


CHAPTER  V 

INTELLECTUAL  EESOUECES 

It  is  all  very  well  for  a  woman  to  be  beautiful,  to  lend 
grace  to  the  world,  to  diffuse  sweetness  and  light ;  but  this 
would  be  but  a  vain  show  if  she  did  not  with  jealous  care 
nourish  in  herself  the  flame  of  love  of  the  Beautiful. 
Castiglione,  who  liked  to  give  a  mathematical  precision  to 
his  definitions,  tells  us :  "  Woman  must  nourish  herself  on 
the  life  of  the  world  and  the  life  of  the  arts" — thus  in 
appearance  relegating  the  aesthetic  life  to  a  second  place ; 
but  he  is  very  careful  to  add :  "  She  must  occupy  herself 
with  literature,  music,  painting,  dancing,  and  entertaining  "  ; 
in  other  words,  the  heart  must  reverse  the  parts,  and  in  the 
conscience  secret  preoccupations  must  come  before  visible 
occupations.  His  view  is  logical.  How  could  women 
govern  the  world  if  they  were  in  reality  its  slaves  ?  The 
first  necessity  for  a  lighthouse  is  a  light. 

Further,  we  ourselves  have  a  right  to  ask  where  these 
ladies  think  of  leading  us.  Their  art  consists  in  pleasing  us 
and  in  indoctrinating  us  with  their  principles.  To  please  is 
their  secret,  with  which  we  do  not  meddle ;  it  is  of  little 
consequence  to  know  if  Lucretia  Borgia  cut  out  her  own 
dresses,  where  and  by  whom  Mary  Stuart  had  her  hats 
made,  or  if  women  always  please  by  what  pleases  their 
husbands.  But  when  they  speak  of  ruling  our  intelligence, 
it  becomes  of  very  great  importance  to  know  how  they  will 
deal  with  us.  , ^ 

The  intellectual  provision  of  the  Renaissance  women  con- 
sisted chiefly  of  impressions  of  art,  in  accordance  with 
Castiglione's  prescription.  In  this,  painting  (still  more  the 
inferior   manual   arts — lace-making,   embroidery,   tapestry) 

261 


262      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

held  the  lowest  rank,  on  the  principle  universally  accepted 
in  the  platonic  world  that  the  less  an  art  needs  the  co-opera- 
tion of  the  senses  to  touch  the  soul,  the  greater  is  its 
excellence.  Music  stood  higher  than  painting,  because  it 
directly  transmits  an  impression;  vocal  music  in  particular 
represents  almost  the  speech  of  soul  to  soul,  with  but  an 
insignificant  admixture  of  materiality.  Poetry  was  the 
supreme  art,  the  truly  aristocratic  thing;  no  one  would 
have  dreamt  of  comparing  it  to  painting  or  any  manual 
art.  The  poet  with  one  stroke  paints  soul  and  body;  in 
Ronsard's  words,  "  he  paints  in  the  heavens." 

To  lay  in  her  stock  of  happiness,  a  woman  will  begin  by 
living  in  close  communion  with  the  Beautiful.  Sciences  are 
useless  to  her ;  she  has  little  taste,  and  still  less  time,  for  their 
cultivation.  But  just  as  she  finds  breakfast  a  necessity,  so 
she  ought  every  morning  to  give  her  soul  nourishment,  if  it 
be  only  one  sip  of  the  beautiful.  Louise  of  Savoy  on 
rising  used  to  read  a  psalm,  "  to  perfume  her  day,"  as  she 
put  it.  These  few  moments'  reading  were  sufficient  to  flood 
her  soul  with  a  radiance  to  light  her  through  the  day. 

Further,  reading  is  a  duty  having  special  claims  on 
women.  Not  only  is  there  always  some  new  thing  to  learn, 
some  new  chord  to  touch,  but  the  intellectual  life  demands 
a  constant  outgoing  of  energy, — I  will  venture  to  say,  a  con- 
tinual "  education."  Could  a  tree  flourish  and  bear  fruit  if 
it  refused  to  suck  up  its  sap  ?  How  long  would  it  be  before 
it  stood  a  bare  skeleton  against  the  sky  ? 

Thus,  with  complete  independence  of  mind,  as  great  as 
her  material  liberty  but  much  more  difficult  to  acquire,  a 
woman  will  supply  herself  with  spiritual  food;  she  will  seek 
Beauty  in  truth  stripped  of  all  conventions.  The  real  foe  to 
women's  freedom  is  not  this  or  that  man,  but  themselves, 
because  of  their  frivolity,  their  inconsequence,  and  their 
innate  passion  for  the  superficial;  in  other  words,  for  the 
conventional  or  fashionable.  They  need  a  real  force  of  soul 
to  go  deeply  into  anything;  they  are  perfectly  happy  in 
yielding  to  the  glitter  of  a  thought  which,  though  obscure 
at  bottom,  is  dazzling  on  the  surface.  When  the  taste  for 
precision  has  not  been  carefully  instilled  into  them  in  child- 
hood, they  run  a  great  risk  of  wasting  their  minds  in  habits 
of  cursory  curiosity,  like  many  men  of  the  world. 

Books  played  a  prominent  part  in  the  psychology  of  the 


INTELLECTUAL  RESOURCES  263 

Renaissance.  They  were  regarded  as  the  highest  type  of 
luxury;  a  house  was  characterised  as  much  by  its  library  as 
by  its  plate.  Among  the  ladies,  Anne  of  Brittany,  Louise 
of  Savoy,  and  many  others  are  essentially  deserving  of  the 
name  of  bibliophiles,  nobly  loving  the  beautiful  books  with 
beautiful  miniatures  produced  for  them.  They  were  even 
accused  of  reading  them.  In  that  epoch,  the  artistic  aroma 
exhaled  from  a  fine  edition  seemed  necessarily  to  accentuate 
the  written  thought,  just  as  music  accentuated  the  uttered 
thought.  We  have  become  wiser ;  we  have  discovered  that 
beautiful  books  are  herbariums  in  which  ideas  must  be  left 
to  dry,  for  their  better  preservation. 

There  was  no  lack  of  scoffers  to  make  mock  of  this 
"  bookish  sufficiency."  "  What  a  heap  of  books !  .  .  . 
These  folk  must  surely  mean  to  carry  the  world  on  their 
backs !  What  a  frittering  away  of  intellectuality  ! "  And, 
indeed,  Margaret  of  France  not  only  believed  in  books,  but 
doted  on  them ;  to  her  a  library  seemed  a  sanctuary. 

"  Tant  j  en  a  que  le  seul  remembrer 
Et  les  noiumer  n'est  pas  en  ma  puissance, 
Mais  il  faisoit  beau  voir  leur  ordonnance  .  .  . 
Et  du  scavoir  qui  est  dedans 
J'en  laisse  aux  folz  craindre  les  accidens  .  .  . 
Des  livres  fiz  ung  pillier,  et  sembloit 
Que  sa  grandeur  terre  et  ciel  assembloit." 1 

We  writers  think  it  natural  enough  that  people  should 
buy  our  books,  keep  them,  and  even  cut  a  few  pages  ;  if  it 
is  women  who  show  us  this  attention,  we  do  not  complain. 
We  dig  away  in  darkness  under  the  soil,  labouring  like  a 
miner  with  his  pick ;  why  should  we  complain  that  above 
us,  in  the  bright  sunshine,  someone  sifts  and  mints  our 
metal,  and  circulates  part  of  it  through  the  world  ? 

It  is  even  a  not  wholly  disagreeable  surprise  to  meet  in 
an  odd  place  here  and  there  one's  own  ideas,  which  have 

1  So  many  books  there  are,  my  memory  fails 
To  number  or  to  name  them  ;  but  to  see 
Their  fair  array  's  a  pleasant  sight  to  me. 

And  as  for  fearing  what  they  have  inside, 
'Tis  a  mere  folly  I  may  not  abide. 

...... 

I  piled  a  pillar  of  them,  and  methought 
It  heaven  and  earth  together  brought. 


264      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

flitted  away  and  found  warm  foster-parents  in  people  who 
have  so  far  adopted  them  as  to  believe  them  their  own. 
Sometimes  it  is  another  writer  who  is  good  enough  to 
saddle  himself  with  them  thus,  and  in  that  case  our  feeling 
is  not  perhaps  unalloyed  pleasure;  but  if  it  is  a  reader,  man 
or  woman,  we  are  well  rewarded.  Often,  too,  our  idea  as  it 
goes  round  has  altered  in  feature,  and  if  it  now  and  then 
appears  to  us  enfeebled,  it  also  happens  sometimes  to  have 
gained  strength. 

Everyone  cannot  be  a  writer !  '  Amateurs '  have  a  role  of 
their  own,  which  is  not  that  of  'stickit'  authors — a  r61e 
of  synthesis,  generalisation,  criticism,  support,  sanction  ! 

The  end  we  pursue — thought,  namely,  and  truth — can 
only  be  attained  by  the  aid  of  conversation, — only  if  dis- 
tinguished and  enthusiastic  women  set  themselves  to  distil 
from  our  books  any  good  they  may  contain,  and  to  diffuse 
its  essence  around  them. 

From  this  almost  indispensable  collaboration  between 
pure  learning  and  its  popular  interpretation  results  a 
vigorous  life.  As  Madame  d'Haussonville  has  so  well  said  : 
"An  eager  desire  for  knowledge  possessed  the  entire  six- 
teenth century.  The  quick  and  supple  intellect  of  the 
women  was  carried  away  in  the  general  current.  Erudition 
was  the  passion  of  the  age,  not  that  cold  and  microscopic 
erudition  which  arises  in  ages  of  decadence,  and  which  is 
often  only  the  useless  lumber  of  scholastic  pedantry,  but  an 
erudition  living,  intelligent,  and  animated" — animated,  that 
is  by  aestheticism. 

By  the  side  of  exquisites  like  Bembo,  laborious  students 
like  Lefevre  d'Etaples,  Hebraists,  and  exegetists  cultivating 
their  little  patch  with  dogged  tenacity,  there  were  brilliant 
minds,  perhaps  more  brilliant  than  profound,  but  unpreju- 
diced, who  synthetised  particular  studies  and  started  them 
on  an  unlooked-for  career.  For  the  Hebraists,  exegetists, 
philosophers,  and  historians  of  every  description,  the  spread 
of  intelligence  would  of  course  have  been  fatal ;  but  it  was 
the  raison  d'etre  of  a  lady  whose  mission  was  to  put  in 
circulation  the  results  of  her  individual  study. 

Thus  the  aim  which  women  had  to  set  before  themselves 
in  their  reading  was  twofold  :  first,  a  personal,  aesthetic 
aim,  the  reinvigoration  and  refreshment  of  their  own  souls  •> 
secondly,  an  aim  relating  to  their  apostolic  mission,  the  art 


INTELLECTUAL  RESOURCES  265 

of  understanding  men's  souls,  then  of  charming  and  leading 
them  by  means  of  conversation. 

But  it  is  impossible,  by  merely  scanning  a  man's  book- 
shelves, to  form  an  idea  of  the  man.  In  great  houses,  the 
king's,  for  example,  some  of  the  books  were  inherited,  others 
were  presents,  others  were  books  that  no  gentleman's  library 
could  have  been  without.  Francis  I.  bought  the  Italian 
novelties,  Bembo,  Pontanus,  and  Politian.  In  reality  his 
chief  reading  was  the  Arthurian  romances. 

The  princesses  had  also,  besides  the  books  of  the  hour, 
books  that  they  had  been  obliged  to  buy  or  accept,  books 
left  to  them — those  which  were  kept  "for  their  backs,"  as 
Montaigne  said.  The  bookshelves  made  a  brilliant  display 
in  a  spacious  gallery  adorned  with  the  choicest  objects  of 
art.  The  bulk  of  the  library  usually  consisted  of  books  on 
the  elements  of  religion,  history,  and  morals ;  it  also  con- 
tained romances,  poetry,  Petrarch,  Boccaccio,  and  books 
with  engravings,  which  too  often  replaced  those  charming 
manuscripts  of  which  Louise  of  Savoy  was  one  of  the  last 
protectors. 

The  books  that  were  read  were  treatises  on  history, 
especially  Roman  history,  and  on  practical  medicine.1  But 
custom  varied. 

Certain  ladies,  like  Anne  of  France,  browsed  on  the  early 
fathers,  the  philosophers,  and  the  moralists.  Many,  while 
loving  studies  of  this  kind  and  calling  themselves  highly 
philosophic,  preferred  to  have  their  food  peptonised,  and  to 
be  furnished  with  ready-made  convictions  which  only 
required  ventilating  and  disseminating  in  conversation.  A 
number  of  Italian  treatises  proffered  themselves  for  this 
little  service,  the  best  of  which  was  Castiglione's  book,  The 
Courtier.  To  name  Castiglione  is  to  name  the  Bible  of 
platonism,  the  code  of  aestheticism,  the  Machiavelli  of  anti- 
machiavelism ;  Castiglione  was  in  the  hands  of  every 
woman  who  meditated  on  the  ideal. 

From  a  purely  aesthetic  standpoint  the  classics  were  in 
favour,  except  Virgil,  to  whom  only  the  Mantuans  remained 
faithful,  probably  from  local  feeling.  Ovid,  who  speaks 
so   well   and  so   much   about  women,  ranked   very   high. 

1  Lucretia  Borgia  took  to  Ferrara  for  her  personal  use  only  beautifully 
decorated  Books  of  Hours,  a  few  devotional  books,  a  manual  of  history,  a 
collection  of  songs,  a  Dante,  and  a  small  Petrarch. 


266      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

He  had  been  popularised  in  France  by  the  translations 
of  Octovien  de  Saint-Gelais  and  Andre"  de  la  Vigne; 
illustrated  editions  went  off  rapidly,  even  though  the 
engravings  were  old.  In  the  very  highest  artistic  spheres, 
people  swore  by  Cicero.1  In  Margaret  of  France's  circle  the 
favourite  names  were  Terence  and  Cicero,  Castiglione  and 
Boccaccio. 

On  the  reading  days,  which  were  principally  (we  are 
bound  to  say)  the  grey  days  of  existence,  when  one  feels 
abandoned  by  God  and  men,  when  one  is  left  to  "  one's  own 
devices,"  people  rather  sought  for  light  entertainment,  if 
possible  gently  emotional,  or  at  any  rate  lively,  cheering, 
affecting.  The  Bible  was  very  useful  for  getting  glimpses 
of  Heaven  without  having  to  run  to  a  monk  or  a  parson, 
for  an  intelligent  woman  cared  for  nothing  lower  than  a 
bishop.  If  they  wanted  psychology,  they  went  to  poetry, 
novels,  romances.  A  mere  sonnet,  a  little  story,  very  short 
but  with  movement  and  savour,  would  suffice  to  cure  a 
casual  fit  of  dumps ;  in  more  complicated  cases  they  took 
up  some  voluminous  romance,  which  engrossed  the  attention 
for  long  hours  and  reflected  life  for  the  nonce  in  warm  and 
sunny  hues. 

The  literature  of  the  Renaissance  was  well  provided 
with  Nouvelles  and  Faceties,  answering  all  the  demands  for 
spiced  and  piquant  reading  made  even  by  the  platonist 
ladies. 

They  revelled  in  such  works  with  no  touch  of  coyness ;  it 
was  a  mark  of  breeding  to  discuss  them,  laugh  at  them,  and 
quote  from  them.  Often  some  courtly  abbe,  the  spiritual 
director  of  these  ladies,  and  soon  to  be  a  full-blown 
bishop,  undertook  explanation  or  translation. 

Some  persons  have  questioned  whether  the  custom  of 
reading  narratives  so  strongly  spiced  did  not  in  the  long  run 
obliterate  the  moral  sense,  especially  among  women.  Bran- 
tome  maintains  that  this  was  the  cause  of  all  moral  obli- 
quities. Margaret  of  France  did  not  believe  it ;  her  faith  in 
art  was  so  ardent  that  she  regarded  it  as  a  proof  of  mental 
vigour  to  face  all  sorts  of  literature  without  blenching. 
Her  friend  Marot  told  her  so  with  a  smile,  for  in  the  contest 

1  Especially  Castiglione,  who  borrowed  entire  passages  from  Cicero. 
A  translation  of  the  De  Officii*  was  published  at  Lyons  on  Feb.  11, 
1493-94. 


INTELLECTUAL   RESOURCES  267 

between  flesh  and  spirit  he  held  with  the  flesh  ;  he  mentions 
a  select  list  of  the  works  reputed  the  most  naughty,  and 
adds: 

Tout  cela  est  bonne  doctrine, 

Et  n'y  a  rien  de  deffendu  I l 

Margaret,  brought  up  on  Saint-Gelais  and  Boccaccio,  was 
in  truth  inoculated.  Further,  like  some  other  women  of 
narrow  mysticism,  she  was  not  afraid  of  contrasts ; — soul  and 
body  in  opposite  pans  of  the  scale,  Petrarch  as  a  corrective 
to  Boccaccio,  and  vice  versa.  Good  humour  and  gaiety 
were  part  of  the  platonist  hygiene,  and  ladies  took  them 
where  they  found  them.  Coarse  pleasantries  did  not  amuse, 
as  a  German2  who  had  spent  great  pains  in  writing  a  Eulogy 
of  Baldness  frankly  confessed.  "  We  are  ridiculous  even 
when  we  write  of  serious  things,  but  we  are  never  gay. 
When  we  try  to  be  jocular  it  is,  in  the  words  of  the  proverb, 
like  setting  an  elephant  to  dance."  Professed  humorous 
writers  are  such  bores ! — a  crusty  old  philosopher  like  Nifo, 
to  wit,  or  that  excellent  La  Perriere,  a  friend  of  Margaret,  who 
dedicated  his  lascivious  verses,  his  Hundred  Considerations 
of  Love,  to  a  clerk  in  the  Woods  and  Forests ! 

There  was  no  help  for  it,  ladies  had  to  return  to  Boccaccio, 
since  amusement  was  his  monopoly !  The  chance  discovery 
of  a  by  no  means  remarkable  unpublished  fragment  of 
Boccaccio  covered  Claricio  of  Imola  with  glory,  and  was 
published  at  the  expense  of  a  Milanese  Maecenas,  Andrea 
Calvi,  under  the  auspices  of  Leo  X.  and  Francis  I.  Casti- 
glione  and  Margaret  were  not  disposed  to  attack  such  a 
renown :  their  ambition  was  to  eclipse  it.  Margaret  had  a 
fresh  translation  of  Boccaccio  made.  She  herself,  as  we 
know,  was  ambitious  to  imitate  the  master ;  and  to  do  so 
was  really  a  profitable  business :  by  donning  Boccaccio's 
mantle  Firenzuola  became  a  dignitary  of  the  church,  and 
Bandello  became  bishop  of  NeVac;  while  a  common  saddler, 
Nicolas,  gained  the  favour  of  the  king.  The  test  of  skill 
was  to  tell  true  stories  under  transparent  pseudonj^ms. 
Yet  Louise  of  Savoy  was  almost  as  fond  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles. 

1  All  this  is  excellent  good  lore, 
And  none  of  it  locked  in  the  cupboard. 

2[Rheinauer  (Latinised  as  Rhenanus),  a  famous  German  philologist,  a 
friend  and  correspondent  of  Erasmus.] 


268      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

The  Fac^tie  had  a  less  brilliant  fate.  Poggio  and  Corna- 
zano,  always  dear  to  the  ladies,  handed  down  many  of  their 
stories  to  imitators  like  Domenichi,  Delicado,  Boistuau,  who 
in  their  turn  passed  them  on  to  Shakespeare,  La  Fontaine, 
and  others. 

The  old  romance  continued  in  high  favour — a  favour  that 
was  so  far  merited  in  that  the  romance  combined  with  the 
sentimentalism  of  chivalry  sufficient  spiciness  to  induce  a 
good  lady  to  leave  it  lying  on  her  table.  Women  doted  on 
the  venerable  romance  of  cloak  and  sword,1  long,  diffuse,  and 
heroic;  it  had  long  ago  captured  Italy.  It  delighted 
princesses  by  its  idealism,  and  peasant  girls  by  its  flavour  of 
mystery  and  marvel.  When  the  efflorescence  of  humanism, 
aestheticism  and  the  new  ideas  was  at  its  height,  the 
Romaunt  of  the  Rose  made  its  reappearance,  and  year  in, 
year  out  men  saw  defiling  past,  as  though  resuscitated  by 
some  terrible  incantation,  all  the  old  knights  of  ecstatic  or 
sorrowful  countenance,  the  champions  of  the  Holy  Grail  and 
of  Melusina — Lancelot  of  the  Lake  and  Perceforest,  Fier-a- 
bras  and  Percival,  Ponthus,  Meliadus,  Pierre  de  Provence, 
all  that  Gothic  world  which  was  believed  to  be  dead  and 
buried.  With  them  they  brought  their  friends  and  relatives 
— The  Fair  Elaine,  Theseus,  The  Destruction  of  Troy,  The 
Doughty  Hector,  Oedipus,  Alexander  the  Great,  these 
worthy,  up  to  a  certain  point,  of  rubbing  shoulders  with 
Plato ;  out  also  Baudouin,  Le  Grant  Voyage  de  Jherusalem, 
La  Conqueste  de  Tre'bisonde,  in  an  age  when  people  troubled 
themselves  very  little  about  Crusades !  Even  the  Italians 
went  mad  over  Charlemagne.  It  was  like  an  electric  spark 
— a  reciprocal  attraction.  France  lost  her  heart  to  Italy, 
and  Italy  opened  wide  her  arms  to  France ;  the  women  of 
the  south,  the  men  of  the  north.  In  vain  did  the  platonist 
men  ridicule  the  event ;  in  vain  did  their  spokesman,  Pulci, 
at  the  court  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  the  sanctuary  of  platonism, 
empty  the  vials  of  their  wrath  and  give  the  paladins  a 
terribly  hot  time  of  it ;  nothing  could  stem  the  tide,  and  a 
romance — a  shockingly  bad  one — entitled  /  reali  di  Francia, 
became  the  germ  of  a  whole  new  literature. 

1  The  duchess  of  Orleans  was  so  fond  of  them  that  her  husband  could  find 
no  finer  present  to  give  her  than  the  romance  of  Troilus  and  Cressida, 
and  one  day  she  sent  a  messenger  in  hot  haste  after  a  lady  of  the  court  wh« 
had  borrowed  a  Cleriadus  and  forgotten  to  return  it — as  often  happens. 


INTELLECTUAL  RESOURCES  269 

Men  succumbed  to  this  craze  because  the  women  drove 
them  to  it.  Besides,  nations,  like  widows,  love  the  dear 
departed.  Since  chivalry  had  ceased  to  exist,  people  natur- 
ally swore  by  nothing  else.  The  more  our  activities  decline, 
the  more  we  gloat  over  the  memory  of  past  excesses. 
Charlemagne,  then,  filled  the  horizon ;  doting  looks  were 
cast  at  rusty  old  sword-blades,  and  while  works  of  quite 
charming  beauty  left  women  almost  unmoved,  spectres  had 
only  to  appear,  to  vanquish  them.  Sometimes  these  showed 
themselves  naked  and  unadorned,  in  all  the  strange  dignity 
of  their  powerful  frames ;  at  other  times  an  intelligent  editor 
paid  some  attention  to  their  toilet,  smartened  them  up, 
decked  them  with  little  rosettes  of  pink  or  blue.  How 
many  times  was  Amadis,  perhaps  the  most  famous  of  these 
romances,  thus  tittivated  !  No  one  remembered  that  France 
had  given  it  birth ;  it  was  re-imported  into  France  by  way 
of  Spain  and  Italy  through  a  translation  of  Herberay  des 
Essarts,  with  fabulous  success :  "  Any  one  who  spoke  ill  of 
the  Amadis  romances  would  have  been  a  hissing  and  a  by- 
word." Out  of  four  books  it  grew  into  a  dozen ;  it  might 
well  have  lengthened  itself  indefinitely,  like  some  law-suits 
in  our  own  time. 

These  old  romances  are  to-day  scarcely  known  except  by 
scholars.  If  we  open  any  one  of  them  at  hazard — Lancelot 
of  the  Lake  for  instance,  one  of  the  most  classic1 — we  find 
that  the  colouring  is  crude.  Side  by  side  with  mystic 
virginities  we  see  the  reek  of  coarse  appetites.  Wives 
and  maidens  have  blood  in  their  veins,  and,  like  all  persons 
of  rather  primitive  education,  do  nothing  by  halves;  her 
husband  has  only  to  turn  his  back  for  a  moment  and  queen 
Guinevere  is  feeling  her  way  towards  a  reconciliation  with 
Lancelot  (bearded  like  the  pard),  and  the  gallant  knight 
has  no  need  to  supplicate  to  get  the  window  opened. 
Sir  Gawain  holds  very  brief  parley  with  the  daughter  of 
the  king  of  North  Wales,  when  he  surprises  her  extended 
on  her  ermine  couch  in  a  virginal  but  ravishing  deshabille ! 
Arthur  very  quickly  forgets  Queen  Guinevere  amid  the 
solace  brought  him  in  his  cell  by  a  damsel  "  courteous  and 
fair  of  speech." 

As  it  mixed  in  the  best  platonist  society,  the  old  romance 

1  The  reading  of  Lancelot  of  the  Lake  inspired  Dante,  as  is  well  known, 
with  the  exquisite  passage  on  Francesca  da  Rimini. 


270      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

of  chivalry  picked  up  more  refined  manners.  King  Arthur 
ends  by  gathering  about  him  a  noble  enough  company ; 
Roland  leaves  Charlemagne  in  the  lurch,  to  hasten  after  his 
well-beloved ;  and  (horror  of  horrors !)  Angelica  philanders 
prettily  with  a  Saracen  page !  The  old  torrential  romance 
ended  like  the  Rhone — fell  into  a  tranquil  lake. 

And  yet  the  dignitaries  of  the  church  invariably  de- 
nounced it,  and  had  the  courage  to  break  with  the  women 
on  this  point.  They  countenanced  neither  the  old  masters 
nor  the  new — the  eloquent  Cataneo,  the  gay  Boiardo. 
Nothing  disarmed  their  opposition — neither  the  success  of 
romances  like  La  C&estine,1  nor  blandishments.  When 
Ariosto  offered  to  Cardinal  d'Este  his  masterpiece  packed 
with  dithyrambs  in  honour  of  all  the  Estes  past,  present, 
and  to  be,  the  amiable  prelate  said  to  him :  "  Where  on 
earth  did  you  get  all  this  nonsense  ?"2 

In  short,  women  who  read,  read  what  spoke  of  love :  that 
was  what  they  set  store  by.  Philosophy  spoke  of  love — 
they  were  philosophers ;  romances,  face'ties,  novels,  poetry 
spoke  of  love — they  sipped  also  of  that  philosophy.  But  in 
some  cases  it  was  philosophy  that  bred  the  spirit  of  love,  in 
other  cases  it  was  the  spirit  of  love  that  led  them  to 
philosophy ;  and  from  this  wide  differences  resulted. 

The  first  class  were  coldly  sentimental, — but  no  real  sway 
is  exerted  through  coldness ;  they  lived  in  the  absolute, — but 
the  absolute  lends  no  governing  force.  They  lost  touch 
with  things,  they  had  nothing  of  the  communicable  warmth 
which  makes  apostles.  They  were  princesses,  sacred  beings, 
to  be  admired  but  not  touched. 

Plato  had  not  evolved  a  practical  rule  for  happiness,  and 
his  best  friends  agreed  that  his  social  ideas  presented  many 
chimerical  sides. 

But  the  ladies  who  learnt  their  philosophy  from  love 
were  the  ardent,  active  women  who  knew  that  the  world  is 
swayed  by  passions,  good  or  bad,  and  that  the  secret  of 
feminine  power  lies  far  more  in  that  than  in  any  amount  of 
reasoning.  Reason  may  produce  an  artless  blissfulness,  but 
passion  has  lynx  eyes.     Love  is  not  reasoned  out  or  manu- 

1  ["  In  which  there  are  divers  relations  of  the  deceptions  of  servants 
towards  their  masters,  and  of  pimps  towards  lovers,  translated  from  Italian 
into  French."    Paris:  1527.] 

8  He  had  got  it  in  the  library  of  the  Palace. 


INTELLECTUAL  RESOURCES  271 

factured,  it  is  a  give  and  take ;  life  also  is  only  a  perpetual 
exchange,  and  happiness  conies  from  life,  while  Plato  seeks 
it  in  self-contemplation  and  egoism.  To  act  on  another,  one 
must  be  acted  on ;  to  make  others  happy  we  must  gain 
happiness  through  others.  An  illogical  process  ?  What  if 
it  is  ?  Nothing  is  more  illogical  and  more  relative  than 
happiness,  since  it  has  to  do  with  us.  That  is  for  many 
women  the  science  of  life,  and  they  love  romances  as  a 
pictorial  philosophy — not  cold  precept,  but  a  living  force — 
a  philosophy  in  which  the  heart  cries  out  instead  of 
patiently  suffering  dissection. 

Books  appealed  to  the  feelings.  Poggio  tells  the  story  of 
a  worthy  man,  a  merchant  and  a  Milanese,  and  therefore 
doubly  unemotional,  who  almost  died  of  grief  after  reading 
about  the  death  of  Roland :  yet  Roland  had  been  dead  seven 
hundred  years  !  Much  more  were  women  justified  in  show- 
ing their  sensibility ! 

So,  when  they  read,  they  attached  the  highest  value  to 
the  external  forms  which  produce  impressions :  they  were 
affected  more  by  these  than  by  ideas.  The  wife  of 
Guillaume  Buds'  declared  that  she  loved  her  husband's 
books,  not  for  their  contents,  but  because  she  regarded  them 
as  his  offspring.  Women  adored  magnificence  of  expression 
— the  rhetoric,  the  rhythm,  the  "gay  trimmings"  of  style; 
poetry  seemed  to  them  the  supreme  enchantment,  because 
it  answered  at  once  to  their  personal  craving  for  "sensi- 
bility "  and  to  their  mission,  which  consisted  precisely  in 
sowing  a  little  charm  in  life,  that  is,  in  garnishing  life 
externally  with  a  little  poetry. 

However,  what  they  called  poetry  we  should  rather  call 
music.  Poetry  in  those  days  was  only  a  perpetual  libretto ; 
there  was  rhythm  and  cadence  in  the  arrangement  of  the 
words,  and  the  impression  they  gave  was  a  musical  one. 
Perfect  clearness  was  not  insisted  on ;  the  thought  was 
allowed  to  remain  in  semi-obscurity,  like  a  melody  flowing 
uncertainly  through  a  strain  of  music,  rather  betrayed  than 
revealed  by  the  harmony.  Our  great  Lamartine,  with  his 
lofty  but  indefinite  thought,  has  been  regarded  even  by  us 
as  the  first  of  poets.  On  the  other  hand,  the  aim  of  musical 
melody  was  boldly  to  seize  all  these  words,  to  give  them  a 
precise  value,  intensity,  brilliance,  and  force.  The  employ- 
ment chiefly,  or  indeed  exclusively,  of  human  voices  brought 


272      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

this  quality  still  further  into  prominence ;  the  delicate 
modulations  of  the  voice,  thrown  out  with  matchless  skill, 
seemed  to  outline  the  very  soul  of  the  singer,  like  traceries 
against  the  sky. 

The  admirable  inspirations  of  Vittoria  and  her  prede- 
cessors will  never  cease  to  touch  us.  In  that  old  idealistic 
music  there  lies  a  whole  intangible  world ;  our  vows,  our 
love,  our  poignant  sorrows,  our  prayers  gush  forth  in  it  like 
a  fountain,  flash  like  a  bursting  rocket  in  the  sky :  u  God 
has  given  us  nothing  more  pleasant,  nothing  more  sweet," 
exclaimed  a  poet :  "  music  is  a  messenger  from  heaven,  the 
solace  of  all  our  woes."1 

The  sonnets  of  Petrarch  were  set  to  music  and  sung; 
they  had  indeed  been  composed  for  that  purpose.  Teodoro 
Riccio  furnished  an  accompaniment  to  the  famous  romance, 
Italia  rnia,  and  Ciprian  van  Rore  one  to  the  sonnet, 
Fontana  di  dolore,  Albergo  d'ira.  Ronsard,  too,  wrote  his 
sonorous  rhymes  for  music ;  Ba'if,  as  is  well  known,  went  so 
far  as  to  propose  to  turn  writing  into  a  sort  of  notation, 
and  when  his  academy  was  instituted,  composers  of  music 
and  even  mere  singers  were  admitted  on  equal  footing  with 
poets.  The  art  of  music  consisted  in  giving  to  thought  all 
the  external  beauty  of  which  it  was  capable.  Philosophers 
counted  metrical  music  (in  other  words,  poetry)  or  vocal 
music  as  a  part  of  philosophy.  The  art  thus  intellectualised 
became  quite  a  religion.  In  his  painting  of  Parnassus  at 
the  Vatican,  Raphael  shows  us  Apollo  singing  like  an 
ancient  bard.  In  all  the  pictures  of  Paradise  that  we  have 
seen  we  have  never  found  a  palette,  or  a  sculptor's  point, 
or  even  a  rostrum  or  an  inkstand ;  nothing  but  direct  and 
pure  communion  with  God  through  contemplation  and 
music.  And  what  could  be  more  delicious  than  the  little 
choirs  of  angels  which  Giovanni  Bellini's  imagination  placed 
at  the  feet  of  his  Madonnas,  like  an  incense  of  homage  from 
the  world!  Melozzo  gives  a  queen  an  organ  as  her  emblem,2 
and  Titian  one  to  his  Venuses.  Music  would  seem  to  have 
been  the  very  breath  of  happiness. 

A  woodcut,  thrice  repeated  in  the  Illustrations  des  Gaules  (1528)  repre- 
sents France  on  a  throne,  with  Ill-hap  at  her  feet ;  on  her  right  is  Noblesse, 
represented  as  a  maiden  playing  a  violin ;  on  her  left,  the  People,  depicted 
as  a  young  man  playing  a  guitar. 

'National  Gallery. 


INTELLECTUAL  RESOURCES  273 

The  common  people  themselves  were  strangely  enamoured 
of  intellectual  harmonies.  In  Italy  a  number  of  poets  spent 
their  life  in  the  market-places,  like  Homer.  Aurelio  Bran- 
diolini,  for  example,  who  sang  in  the  squares  of  Verona  the 
praises  of  antique  heroes,  went  on,  stimulated  by  popular 
applause,  to  execute  veritable  tours  de  force,  such  as  singing 
in  verse  the  thirty-seven  books  of  Pliny's  Natural  History. 
The  celebrated  Bernardo  Accolti  wandered  from  town  to 
town  giving  recitals  in  the  principal  squares.  The  moment 
he  arrived,  people  flocked  about  him,  business  was  suspended, 
far-distant  shops  were  shut,  lights  began  to  appear  on  the 
balconies,  and  the  police  hastened  up  to  keep  order. 
Making  way  through  the  crowd  by  favour,  the  notables 
formed  up  round  the  poet  as  a  guard  of  honour ;  and  then, 
under  the  lamp  of  some  sleeping  Madonna,  amid  breathless 
silence,  the  poet's  voice  arose  towards  the  starry  sky,  singing 
love  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  guitar. 

Nothing  more  truly  characterises  the  period  than  this 
popular  passion  for  musicians,  poets,  and  buffoons.  Far 
from  becoming  degraded  by  contact  with  the  mob,  poetry 
seemed  thereby  to  gain  in  breadth.  A  pure  Virgilian  named 
Andrea  Marone  (Virgil's  surname)  never  felt  at  ease  unless 
sitting  on  a  stone  post;  in  that  position  inspiration  seized 
him  like  an  ancient  sibyl  or  a  fakir;  his  veins  dilated,  drops 
of  sweat  stood  on  his  brow,  his  whole  being  expressed  itself 
in  gestures  which  gave  emphasis  to  his  song,  lightning  flashed 
from  his  eyes ;  it  seemed  as  though  a  part  of  his  individu- 
ality left  him  and  shed  itself  upon  his  audience  like  a  rain 
of  fire. 

Almost  all  women  were  fond  of  music,  for  men  were  very 
accessible  to  ear-charming  sound.  Even  in  France,  in  spite 
of  the  poverty  of  aesthetic  education,  the  villages  harboured 
a  surprising  number  of  harpists  and  taborers.  The  duchess, 
of  Orleans  patronised  at  Blois  a  crowd  of  more  or  less 
official  "  gitternists,"  fiddlers,  and  trumpeters,  without 
reckoning  strolling  guitarists,  always  sure  of  a  warm 
welcome.  Like  all  the  princesses  she  had  her  private  band, 
and  also  two  taborers,  magnificent  in  their  crimson  badge, 
— so  magnificent  that  during  her  lyings-in  she  had  them 
to  play  at  the  foot  of  her  bed.  It  was  a  great  sorrow  to 
her  to  have  to  dismiss,  from  a  prudent  motive  of  economy, 
the  ducal  choir  and  even  one  o£  the  taborers;  Pierre  de 

s 


274      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Vervel,  once  her  master  of  music,  always  remained  her 
friend. 

We  have  in  a  former  volume  shown  Louise  of  Savoy,  a 
cithara  in  her  hand,  surrounded  by  a  harp,  an  organ,  and  a 
complete  orchestra.  Louise  Labe'  approved  of  young  girls 
devoting  to  music  the  best  part  of  their  time.  It  was 
incomprehensible  how  any  lady  who  possessed  this  divine 
means  of  fascination1  could  neglect  it ;  when  a  Mademoiselle 
de  Hauteville  had  to  be  pressed  to  display  her  magnificent 
voice,  her  false  modesty  was  censured  as  a  sort  of  pro- 
fessional error.  Mary  of  England,  accompanying  herself  on 
a  guitar,  used  to  sing  of  a  morning  to  Louis  XII.,  her 
doddering  old  husband,  and  the  poor  prince  felt  himself 
revived,  such  "  wondrous  pleasure  did  he  take  therein." 
Margaret  of  France,  who  has  left  us  thousands  of  verses, 
evidently  betook  herself  to  poetry  as  nowadays  we  go  to 
the  piano,  to  let  her  thoughts  wander  at  large ;  instead  of 
singing  with  her  lips,  she  sang  with  her  pen.  It  is  highly 
probable  that  many  ladies  abandoned  themselves  thus 
to  their  inspirations,  half  music,  half  poetry. 

Sometimes  people  had  too  much  of  it.  It  was  irritating 
to  meet  certain  people  perpetually  humming  a  refrain.  As 
soon  as  you  entered  a  drawing-room,  you  saw  an  instrument 
looming  menacingly  before  you,  and  you  had  to  perform. 
And  then,  how  many  amateurs  would  do  better  to  muzzle 
themselves  than  to  go  quavering  out  their  little  songs ! 

Music  also  was  charged  with  enervating  effects ;  some 
went  so  far  as  to  call  it  an  art  of  decadence,  and  maintained 
that  the  ancient  Medes  had  perished  through  love  of  music. 
Castiglione  almost  gets  into  a  passion  on  this  subject. 
"  What !  Music  effeminating !  But,  I  ask  you,  were  not 
Alexander,  Socrates,  Epaminondas,  Themistocles  musicians  ? 
Lycurgus  was  almost  one  !  Did  the  harp  prevent  Achilles 
from  shedding  blood — if  that  is  what  you  are  driving  at  ? 
Effeminating !  Why,  without  music  how  can  you  praise 
God  ?  What  would  comfort  the  sunburnt  labourer  at  his 
plough,  the  peasant  woman  at  her  wheel,  the  sailor  in  the 
storm,  the  traveller  on  his  weary  way,  the  nurse  in  her 
tiring  night-watches  by  a  cradle  ?  Music,  on  the  contrary, 
is  the  charm  of  life — its  light,  its  sunny  grace  !     No    art 

1  So  well  interpreted  by  Giovanni  Bellini  in  his  Girl  Singing  in  Hampton 
Court  Palace. 


INTELLECTUAL  RESOURCES  275 

responds  better  to  the  demands  of  our  emotional  nature, 
none  more  liberally  brings  us  vivid  and  various  impressions. 
It  softens,  calms,  penetrates  us,  it  moves,  indeed  enraptures 
us ;  it  raises  us  to  heaven  with  the  rapid,  vehement,  urgent 
beating  of  its  wings  ! " 

Castiglione  almost  regards  musie  as  love  itself:  they  were 
to  him  such  nearly  related  terms  that  we  cannot  be  sure  but 
that  in  his  opinion  song  was  more  excellent  than  love. 

In  regard  to  what  was  expected  of  it,  namely,  a  little 
happiness,  music  was  a  performance  of  feeling  rather  than  of 
skill.  Notes  a  little  venturesome  or  even  imperfect  were 
pardoned  if  they  blended,  and  had  resonance  and  passion. 
People  would  boldly  attack  and  smoothly  carry  to  its 
conclusion  a  two-part  fugue.  The  ideal  was  to  hear  in 
a  drawing-room  a  pure  and  mellow  voice,  supported  by 
a  single  lute  ;  or  rather  to  see  the  voice,  for  the  lute,  not 
an  ungraceful  instrument  like  the  piano,  seemed  a  living 
thing,  and  became  one  body  with  the  fair  singer ;  it  was  one 
personality  thrilling  with  song. 

To  idealists  of  the  very  highest  order,  Flemish,  French, 
and  German  music  was  far  superior  to  Italian  music,  because 
it  expressed  ideas,  whilst  Italian  music  barely  went  beyond 
sentiment  or  even  sensation.  Rome  herself  fell  a  willing 
victim  to  the  northern  races.1  Among  many  distinguished 
and  often  admirable  artists,  the  great  figure  of  John  of 
Ockeghem,2  who  died  at  Tours  in  1495,  stands  out  as  that  of 
the  old  master  who  more  than  anyone  else  ennobled  his  art. 

His  successor,  Josquin  Desprez,  a  Fleming  trained  in 
the  same  school  (the  very  name  of  which  has  been  lost 
in  the  loss  of  its  tradition),  and  a  member  of  the  choir 
of  Sixtus  IV,,  became  a  Roman  by  adoption,  and  only 
left  Rome  in  1508  to  proceed  to  Ferrara.  Josquin  was  a 
stickler  for   correctness  and  perfection,  skilful  in  linking 

1Charle8  VIII.  was  even  obliged  to  threaten  serious  consequences  in 
order  to  secure  the  restitution  of  a  singer  and  a  lute-player  who  had  been 
enticed  away  when  he  passed  through  Florence. 

2Ockeghem,  it  has  been  said,  "breathes  into  his  music  the  soul  of  song, 
envelops  it  in  a  vigorous  harmonic  body,  and  clothes  it  with  a  fine  tissue  of 
ingenious  thematic  developments,  imitations  more  or  less  close  and  more  or 
less  extended.  One  finds  in  his  pieces,  often  in  their  inner  parts,  phrases  of 
great  melodic  beauty,  and  full  of  an  extraordinary  sweetness  and  depth  of 
expression.  His  harmonies  are  often  enough  peculiar  and  archaic,  but  they 
are  striking  and  rich.  He  also  brings  his  pieces  to  a  close  in  a  manner 
sometimes  surprising  and  odd,  but  certainly  very  interesting. "   (R.  Eituer. ) 


276      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

discords  and  in  combining  independent  parts.  From  the 
dim  arcana  of  a  sanctuary  his  profound  inspiration  rose  into 
the  clear  light  of  day,  blossoming  out  in  soft  and  brilliant 
colours.  His  phrases  are  like  many-coloured  curves  of  light 
shot  into  space,  describing  their  several  parabolas  without 
confusion  and  without  clashing ;  there  is  white  and  green 
and  red,  but  they  all  spring  from  the  same  flame. 

Many  Italians  censured,  as  fit  for  dreamers  and  doctrin- 
aires, the  exclusive  employment  of  the  human  voice.  They 
wished  to  have  at  least  one  instrument :  the  bass  viol 
(developed  into  our  violoncello),  or  the  viol,  from  which  the 
famous  Amati,  about  1540,  derived  the  violin.  It  is  a  viol 
that  Raphael  places  in  the  hands  of  his  singers,  who  seem  to 
identify  themselves  with  the  instrument  with  a  passionate 
ardour.1 

In  the  smaller  courts  chamber-music  was  cultivated. 
Happy  states !  Nothing  took  precedence  of  the  quest  for  a 
good  musician ;  dilettantism  reigned  supreme.  The  court  of 
Ferrara  was  practically  a  conservatoire ;  it  had  a  celebrated 
orchestra,  from  which  Caesar  Borgia  borrowed  violinists  when 
starting  for  France.  Care  was  taken  that  the  performance 
of  music  should  take  place  in  the  most  favourable  circum- 
stances and  amid  the  profoundest  respect;  there  was  no 
question  of  being  stacked  in  a  hall,  too  hot  or  too  cold, 
of  being  tight  wedged  and  sitting  askew  to  hear  music  by 
the  hour.  Lorenzo  Costa  depicts  a  very  different  concert- 
hall.  Peacefully  reclining  on  a  grassy  lawn,  beneath  the 
shade  of  light-foliaged  trees,  sheltered  from  sun  and  breeze, 
the  ladies  form  the  centre  ;  they  are  discoursing  of  pure 
love.  Their  own  sweetness  seems  to  envelop  everything. 
They  are  crowning  a  lamb  or  an  ox  with  flowers ;  the 
landscape  seems  to  spread  life  out  into  almost  boundless  space, 
intersected  by  a  sheet  of  limpid  water  as  blue  as  the  sky. 
In  the  middle  some  persons  are  unobtrusively  performing 
music  or  writing  verses.  No  one  pays  any  attention  (so 
profound  is  the  spell !)  to  a  troop  of  soldiers  in  the  distance 
repelling  an  incursion,  nor  to  a  handsome  chevalier,  a  solitary 
aud  elegant  figure,  occupied  in  daintily  killing  a  reptile,  nor 
to  certain  groups  which  have  wandered  away  beneath  the 
leafy  shade,  towards  the  extreme  verge  of  platonism. 

1  Harmony,  by  Paul  Veronese  (fresco  at  Masera):  Parnassus,  the  Crowning 
oj  the  Virgin,  by  Raphael  (Vatican). 


INTELLECTUAL  RESOURCES  277 

Purely  instrumental  music,  the  music  of  a  full  orchestra, 
appealed  to  the  commoner  feelings ;  it  served  for  dinners  and 
dances,  as  in  the  banquets  depicted  by  Veronese.  It  repre- 
sented the  voices  of  nature.  It  was  best  understood  on  the 
water,  and  then  the  most  staid  and  stolid  of  people  found  it 
one  of  the  joys  of  life.  It  was  the  delight  of  pleasure- 
loving  nations :  "  Abolish  music,  and  we  must  e'en  fall  to 
prayers."1  At  Venice,  as  soon  as  the  old  cupolas,  the  tall 
statues  and  the  long  facades — decorations  for  a  dance  in 
motley — became  blurred  in  the  evening  haze,  the  city 
seemed  to  swim  in  music  :  a  thousand  bells  chimed  out  the 
Ave  Maria;  jangled  sounds  of  serenades  and  concerts  rose 
from  the  palaces,  the  alleys,  every  nook  and  cranny;  the 
sea  sent  back  its  response  ;  noisy  parties  lightly  skimmed  the 
glistening  surface  of  the  Grand  Canal ;  illuminated  barges 
splashed  their  oars  under  a  window,  with  an  orchestra  or 
band  of  singers.  Strange  intoxication  !  Many  pious  Italians, 
like  Alberto  Pio,  thought  it  so  delightful  that  they  loved  to 
transfer  it  into  the  churches.  Why  not  ?  These  thrilling 
symphonies  did  not  follow  the  sacred  texts  very  closely,  it 
was  said ;  they  were  not  always  of  the  highest  class.  "  You 
hear  the  boys  whinnying,  the  tenors  bellowing,  the  counters 
braying,  the  altos  bawling,  the  basses  scraping  the  bottom 
of  a  well,"  and  in  all  this  the  Puritans  could  see  no  trace  of 
deep  religious  feeling,  "no  well-modulated  pronunciation, 
the  perfect  enunciation  which  brings  the  words  home 
to  the  soul."  2  It  was  a  deafening,  stupefying  music.  But  if 
it  is  necessary  for  our  happiness  that  senses  and  emotions 
should  be  appealed  to  simultaneously,  why  say  no  ? 

Even  dance  music  may  ennoble  the  dance  and  become  an 
element  of  enthusiasm,  peace,  and  joy.  This  was  admirably 
expressed  by  one  Madame  de  Silld  A  canon  sitting  beside 
her  was  laughing  at  the  sight  of  men  leaping  about,  while 
another  was  bursting  his  lungs  blowing  into  a  hollow  stick. 
"  What ! "  she  said,  "  aren't  you  aware  then  of  the  power  of 
music  ?  The  sound  from  this  stick  penetrates  the  mind,  the 
mind  directs  the  body,  and  these  buffooneries  are  the  expres- 
sion of  the  soul!  Would  you  prefer  to  play  at  tennis?" 
The  canon  held  his  tongue,  more  especially  as  he  caught 
oblique  glances  in  his  direction,  and  had  premonitions  of 
being  dragged  into  the  dance  by  way  of  reprisal.  Even  from 
1  Neapolitan  proverb.  *  Erasmus. 


278    THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

all  this  racket  of  the  dance — from  the  harps,  lutes,  organs, 
raanichords,  checkers,  psalteries,  rebecks,  guitars,  tabors,  bass 
viols,  flageolets — a  measure  of  expression  was  demanded. 
The  harpist  whom  Mantegna  shows  us  setting  the  Muses  to 
dance  is  throwing  his  whole  soul  into  his  work;  he  is 
leading  the  dance.1 

Here  we  should  properly  say  something  about  the  drama, 
but  we  shall  treat  it  briefly,  seeing  that  in  those  days  it  was 
very  far  from  displaying  the  same  activit}7  as  at  present.  In 
particular,  the  women's  share  in  the  drama  was  onlj*  that  of 
a  section  of  the  public.  It  was  above  all  the  art  of  the 
prelates,  who  devoted  as  much  care  to  altering  its  character 
as  the  women  did  to  preserving  the  old  romances.  Thus  the 
two  great  forces  of  platonism  were  pitted  against  each  other 
— the  prelates  eager  to  advance,  the  women  anxious  to  hang 
back. 

The  drama  with  its  modern  tendencies  took  possession  of 
Italy  in  the  loth  centurj",  and  Rome  was  almost  its  birth- 
place. Pomponius  Laetus,  officially  licensed  to  produce  the 
plays  of  Plautus  and  Terence,  died  a  few  days  after 
Savonarola.  The  ashes  of  the  monk  had  been  scattered 
to  the  winds ;  but  all  Rome  was  eager  to  accompany  the 
remains  of  Laetus  to  Ara-Coeli,  since-  it  was  a  work  of 
true  piety  to  increase  the  joy  of  life. 

The  palm  for  dramatic  art  was,  with  one  consent,  awarded 
to  Bernardo  Dovizio  da  Bibbiena,  who  had  the  happy  notion 
to  shake  off  the  yoke  of  translation  and  to  write  a  new 
piece  in  imitation  of  Plautus — the  Calandra. 

Bibbiena2  is  one  of  the  best  types  of  this  prelatic  world, 
which  after  all  cannot  be  dissociated  from  the  world  of 
women.  He  belonged  to  the  inner  circle  of  Leo  X.'s  friends, 
having  been  brought  up  with  him,  though  the  son  of  a 
peasant.  He  had  a  spirit  and  verve  which,  according  to 
Paul  Jove,  "  carried  the  gravest  of  people  off  their  feet." 
He  was  supremely  in  his  element  at  the  table.  Moreover, 
he  was  one  of  those  astonishing  men  who  live  at  the 
same  time  a  life  of  toil  and  of  pleasure.  On  becoming  a 
cardinal  he  displayed  vast  activity — acted  as  legate, 
preached   a   crusade,  and   died   at  fifty.      He   has   left   a 

1  In  the  Louvre. 

2  The  Madrid  museum  possesses  a  magnificent  portrait  of  him  by 
Raphael. 


INTELLECTUAL  RESOURCES  279 

goodly  number  of  treatises,  poems,  and  letters ;  but  it  was 
the  drama  that  made  him  famous. 

It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  stir  the  first  representation 
of  his  Calandra  made  at  Urbino,  the  home  of  platonism. 
Everything  was  planned  with  the  care  and  skill  of  perfect 
"  amateurs." 

The  stage  represented  stucco  monuments  and  other  scenic 
illusions  executed  by  such  artists  as  that  age  afforded.  The 
auditorium,  which  was  not  marked  off  from  the  scenery, 
represented  fortifications,  and  the  spectators  lolled  there  at 
their  ease  on  excellent  carpets,  amid  lustres  and  garlands  of 
flowers.  The  orchestra,  placed  out  of  sight,  was  heard  now 
on  one  side,  now  on  the  other. 

Nor  had  the  organisers  neglected  any  means  of  strength- 
ening the  play  itself  by  a  great  variety  of  spectacles — a  pre- 
lude played  by  children ;  a  prologue ;  four  pantomimes 
between  the  acts,  representing  the  story  of  Jason,  with  bulls 
made  of  stuffed  hides,  their  nostrils  flaming,  Venus 
surrounded  by  Cupids,  Neptune  drawn  through  the  flames 
by  fantastic  monsters,  Juno  encircled  by  a  flight  of  birds 
so  natural  that  even  Castiglione,  who  had  had  them  made, 
for  a  moment  believed  them  to  be  real.  These  pantomimes 
were  danced  through  in  the  cleverest  fashion,  with  wonderful 
mechanical  effects.  At  the  close  a  Cupid  recited  some  verses, 
concealed  viols  gave  forth  a  'song  without  words,'  and  a 
quartette  of  voices  concluded  with  a  hymn  to  Cupid. 

And  after  all,  if  the  ladies  had  not  actually  the  direction 
of  this  platonic  entertainment,  they  lost  nothing  thereby ;  it 
was  dedicated  to  them,  and  the  whole  performance  had  for 
its  aim  the  glorification  of  ideal  love.  Such  a  representation 
assumed  an  elevated  and  almost  solemn  character,  similar  in 
kind  to  the  performances  at  Bayreuth  in  these  days. 

Was  the  Calandra  a  masterpiece?  No.  The  plot 
turned  upon  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing  between  two 
twins,  brother  and  sister,  who  changed  clothes  as  circum- 
stances demanded ;  from  this  Bibbiena  derived  risky 
situations,  broad  jokes,  and  a  complicated  de'noument.  But 
it  achieved  an  immense  success.  It  was  represented  again 
at  Urbino  in  1513,  and  afterwards  at  the  Vatican  on  the 
occasion  of  a  visit  from  Isabella  d'Este.  On  that  supreme 
stage  its  licenses  came  under  the  fierce  light  of  criticism,  and 
scandalised  some  of  the  cardinals ;  but  on  the  other  hand  it 


280      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

was  so  magnificently  interpreted,  it  was  so  excellent  "in 
dramatic  elegance,  in  wit,  well-knit  construction,  and  gaiety," 
that  the  enthusiasm  was  unbounded.  The  marchioness 
Isabella  did  not  rest  till  she  had  organised  a  similar 
performance,  an  event  which  took  place  in  1520.  From 
that  time  innumerable  editions  popularised  the  Calandra, 
which  was  chosen  many  years  afterwards  by  the  town 
of  Lyons  for  its  festivities  in  honour  of  Catherine  de' 
Medici. 

The  drama  of  the  time  attained  its  highest  perfection  at 
the  Vatican  under  Leo  X.  The  skill  of  the  actors,  all  men 
of  fashion,  their  sober  Attic  style,  without  a  trace  of  the 
mere  craftsman,  made  the  drama  an  artistic  delight.  As  yet 
no  women  appeared  on  the  stage.  Their  parts  were  sus- 
tained by  men,  and  in  this  connection  we  must  present 
to  our  fair  readers  a  young  prelate  named  Tommaso  Inghir- 
ami,  who  was  the  coryphaeus  of  female  parts  at  the  court 
of  Leo  X.  A  Florentine  and  an  intimate  friend1  of  the 
pope,  who,  as  everyone  knows,  had  his  own  portrait  painted 
along  with  Inghirami  by  Raphael, — so  perfect  a  writer  that 
Erasmus  calls  him  "the  Cicero  of  the  age," — Inghirami 
could  have  taken  one  of  the  most  notable  positions  in  this 
illustrious  generation  if  his  amiable  and  indolent  dilettantism 
had  not  led  him  to  believe  that  writing  books  was  carried  to 
excess.  He  was  satisfied  with  shining  in  conversation,  and 
in  that  he  was  inimitable :  Bembo  and  Sadoleto  constantly 
speak  of  him  with  enthusiasm,  and,  moreover,  in  one  of  the 
most  appreciative  but  critical  societies  that  ever  existed,  he 
won  for  himself  as  a  conversationalist  a  European  renown. 
If  he  had  not  the  extraordinary  gaiety  of  Bibbiena,  he  spoke 
with  dazzling  passion,  wit,  and  fire ;  his  large  coal-black 
eyes  have  an  astonishing  power :  looking  at  them,  one  feels 
light  flashing  from  his  soul. 

He  had  an  ardent  love  for  the  theatre.  One  day,  when 
playing  the  part  of  Phaedra  in  the  Hijypolytus  of  Seneca 
before  Cardinal  St.  George,  he  so  captivated  the  spectators 
by  his  distinction,  and  especially  by  his  passion,  that  the 
name  of  "Phaedra"  became  inseparably  fastened  to  him. 
He  was  a  preacher,  the  learned  librarian  of  the  Vatican,  the 
dignified  Bishop  of  Ragusa;  but,  for  all  that,  from  one  end 
of  Europe  to  the  other  he  was  no  longer  known  except 
1  He  was  born,  like  Leo,  in  J  470. 


INTELLECTUAL   RESOURCES  281 

as  "Phaedra,"  or  at  most  "Thomas  Phaedra."  Only,  the 
name  was  masculinised :  thus  Erasmus  wrote :  "  I  knew 
and  loved  Phaedrum." 

Unhappily,  about  1505,  letters  from  Rome  spread  a 
deplorable  piece  of  news :  Phaedra  is  putting  on  flesh, 
Phaedra  is  big.  "  So  much  the  better,"  retorts  Bembo 
in  Greek,  "  we  wish  she  may  have  twins  ! "  The  portrait 
in  the  Pitti  Palace  shows  him  to  us,  indeed — thi3  superb 
platonist  type  of  the  pseudo-woman — as  by  no  means  a 
slender  man.  There  is  no  doubt  he  had  been  handsome ! 
His  eyes  continue  to  flash  and  throw  their  unabated  fire 
towards  the  ceiling ;  he  still  has  his  fair,  plump  hand, 
his  fine  mouth ;  and  yet,  seated  at  his  table,  he  no  longer 
looks  anything  but  a  handsome  prelate. 

Radiating  from  Rome  under  the  auspices  of  ladies  like 
Isabella  d'Este  or  connoisseurs  like  Ludovico  Gonzaga, 
bishop  of  Mantua,  the  dramatic  art  reigned  nobly  in  the 
courts  and  castles  of  Italy,  without  losing  anything  of 
its  elegant  and  artistic  cachet.  It  adapted  itself  to  all 
circumstances  with  marvellous  flexibility,  ranging  from 
the  opera-ballet  played  in  the  open  air 1  to  genuine  comedy 
and  tragedy.  But,  like  the  Novels  and  Romances,  it 
assumed  a  licentious  and  even  cynical  character,  which 
everybody  regarded  as  natural.  Thus  at  Turin,  in  the  early 
days  of  Lent  in  the  year  1537,  a  comedy  of  the  most  daring 
kind  was  performed :  "  How  warmly  the  ladies  here  received 
it!"  exclaims  an  eye-witness.  At  Foligno,  the  pontifical 
prefect,  a  certain  Orfino,  superintended  in  person  the 
staging  of  Marescalco,  an  extremely  light  production  of 
Aretino;  and  soon  after  the  performance  this  worthy  pillar 
of  pontifical  "tyranny"  wrote  to  the  author,  begging  another 
piece  of  the  same  stamp.  The  Rujfiana  of  Salviano  and 
many  other  pieces  of  a  salacious  turn  won  tempestuous 
applause.  Some  people  took  alarm  and  declared  the  theatre 
to  be  a  hotbed  of  immorality.  The  Senate  of  Venice,  by 
decree  of  December  29,  1509,  forbade  any  performance,  even 
the  recitation  of  an  eclogue  in  a  private  drawing-room, 
under  penalty  of  a  year's  imprisonment  and  exile,  "  irre- 
missible,"  in  the  wording  of  the  decree.  (However,  in  a 
secret  addendum,    the   Senate   reserved  the  right  of  pro- 

1  An  opera-ballet  was  got  up  in  the  open-air  by  Bergouza  di  Botta,  in  his 
park  at  Tortona,  on  the  occasion  of  the  marriage  of  Isabella  of  Aragon. 


282      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

nouncing  the  penalty,  and  by  a  large  majority.)  In  spite 
of  this,  the  Calandra  was  performed  at  Venice  in  1524 
without  any  difficulty  arising. 

The  Italian  drama,  lacking  the  support  of  the  ladies,  had 
little  success  in  France.1 

They  lived  there  on  the  old  Mysteries.  The  performance  of 
these  was  usually  got  up  in  a  convent,  or  by  a  city ;  and, 
unlike  the  Italian  drama,  it  retained  a  character  of  patriotic 
and  moral  instruction  rather  than  of  a  work  of  art.2  Thus 
we  find  Louis  XII.  bestowing  a  pardon  on  an  impresario 
guilty  of  some  criminal  peccadillo,  on  account  of  his  excel- 
lence in  his  profession. 

Italianists  and  French  platonists  respected  this  tradition. 
In  1506  the  town  of  Amboise  got  up  a  performance  before 
Louise  of  Savoy  of  the  Mystery  of  the  Passion,  "  the  most 
beautiful  that  could  be  discovered."  A  priest  plaj^ed  the 
part  of  Christ ;  the  performance  lasted  a  week,  and  was  so 
successful  that  two  years  afterwards  M.  de  Longueville 
wished  to  repeat  it  at  Chateaudun,  and  engaged  in  a  some- 
what acrimonious  correspondence  on  the  subject  with  the 
functionaries  of  Amboise,  whom  he  accused  of  purloining 
the  copy.  This  performance  was  very  costly;  the  town 
took  five  years  (which  seemed  an  enormous  period  in  those 
days)  to  liquidate  a  debt  of  four  thousand  livres  contracted 
on  the  occasion.  It  does  not  appear  that  Louise  of  Savoy, 
who  was  then  residing  at  the  chateau,  contributed  in  any  way 
towards  the  expenses,  as  M.  de  Longueville  did  at  Chateau- 
dun;  but  she  certainly  did  not  disapprove  of  it;  and  towards 
the  middle  of  the  century  it  was  again  in  the  presence  of  a 
thoroughly  platonist  woman,  the  second  Margaret  of  France, 
that  the  last  known  representations  of  the  art  of  the 
Mysteries  are  said  to  have  taken  place. 

With  all  her  daring  on  other  points,  the  first  Margaret 
maintained  a  remarkable  attitude  of  reserve  in  regard  to  the 
theatre.      She  contented    herself  with  experiments  in  an 

1  At  Metz,  in  1502,  the  public  violently  interrupted  and  rendered  impos- 
sible the  representation  of  one  of  the  comedies  of  Terence  which  were 
constantly  played  at  Rome ;  the  performance  had  to  be  postponed  till  next 
day,  when  it  was  continued  before  a  select  audience,  composed  in  great 
part  of  clergy. 

2  E.g.  The  Mystery  of  the  Passion  ;  of  the  Three  Gifts,  played  in  1509;  of 
St.  Andrew,  played  in  1512 ;   of  St.  Barbara,  and  St.  Eustache.  played 

•in  1504. 


INTELLECTUAL  RESOURCES  283 

intermediate  style  of  drama, — religious  comedies,  a  sort  of 
Italianised  'morality,'  easier  to  produce  and  not  so  long- 
drawn-out  as  the  ancient  Mysteries,  yet  neither  very  pious, 
nor  very  amusing,  nor  much  calculated  to  take  the  public 
by  storm.  The  result  was  that  the  drama  long  retained  traces 
of  its  original  character.  So  late  as  the  18th  century 
Voltaire  dedicated  a  tragedy  to  the  pope,  and  fumed  at  not 
being  able  to  get  it  performed  at  Geneva.  The  only  cosmo- 
politan kind  of  piece  was  that  of  the  farces,  knockabouts,1 
harlequinades,  carnival  drolleries,  to  which  the  most  illus- 
trious platonists  of  Florence  attached  their  names.2 
Harlequin  and  Punch  were  always  a  success  in  France  : 
"  They  have  something  that  sets  you  laughing  without 
being  amused  " ;  but  they  introduced  nothing  new.  The 
French  farce  had  long  been  flourishing  on  the  boards ; 
the  Italian  was  only  a  competitor. 

To  sum  up,  the  women  of  the  Renaissance,  as  we  see,  did 
not  try  to  be  savants  or  blue-stockings.  They  skimmed  the 
cream  off  books  and  works  of  art  so  as  to  get  what  suited 
their  mission,  that  is,  something  to  talk  about  and  to  go 
into  raptures  over.  They  did  not  rise  to  what  was  called 
"  humanism,"  like  the  prelates ;  they  stopped  short  at 
loving  intellectual  beauty  more  than  plastic  beauty;  they 
cultivated  a  literature  of  sentiment  and  passion,  and  took 
a  keen  delight  in  beauty  of  form.  They  behaved  as  in- 
structed women,  and  above  all  as  women  of  feeling,  as 
women  who  wished  to  please,  nobly  faithful  to  their  single- 
eyed  pursuit  of  elevated  love. 

1  [Pochades] 

2  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  Pico  della  Mirandola,  Agnolo  Dovizio  da  Bibbiena, 
Bernardo  Ruccellai  [see  George  Eliot's  Romola],  Machiavelli,  and  others : 
it  was  a  singular,  incoherent,  burlesque  procession  of  characters  of  all  sorts 
and  sizes — devils,  deaths,  nymphs,  courtiers,  old  husbands,  young  wives, 
merry  nuns,  hunters  and  huntresses,  pages,  winds,  furies. 


CHAPTER  VI 
CONVERSATION 

We  come  at  last  to  conversation. 

This  was  the  goal,  the  sanctuary  of  happiness,  nay,  bliss 
itself.  All  that  we  have  hitherto  spoken  of  led  up  to  this 
all-engrossing  object,  for  love  was  the  supreme  end,  and 
speech  is  the  vehicle  of  love.  A  circle  of  men  about  a  lady, 
and  she  talking  or  making  them  talk, — this  was  the  supreme 
and  final  formula  of  life. 

Conversation,  then,  was  the  great  art  of  the  platonists, 
infinitely  greater  than  painting  or  sculpture,  greater  than 
music,  poetry  or  oratory,  because  it  alone  established  real 
communication  between  soul  and  soul,  it  alone  was  privileged 
to  body  forth  a  whole  realm  of  unexpressed  emotions  which 
would  freeze  at  the  end  of  a  pen  or  pencil,  and  which  music 
itself  would  render  but  ill.  Words  that  well  up  with  the 
eloquence  of  spontaneity  possess  an  indescribable  vital  force 
impossible  to  analyse ;  innumerable  details  contribute  to  it 
— the  inflection  of  the  voice,  the  gesture,  the  expression  of  the 
eyes,  the  movement  of  the  lips,  the  play  of  all  the  features. 
A  mineral  water  taken  at  its  source  has,  as  every  one 
knows,  singular  virtues  which  are  impoverished  if  it  is 
carried  to  a  distance,  and  which  the  most  skilful  chemist 
cannot  restore.  So  also  the  fount  of  human  intelligence 
must  be  drunk  at  its  source.  If  need  be,  it  is  well  worth  a 
journey. 

Without  women  there  would  be  no  conversation.  For  a 
man  who  thinks  he  can  converse  without  wearing  the  feminine 
yoke  there  is  nothing  but  to  go  off  by  himself  like  Cardan, 
that  intolerable  chatterbox,  who,  though  the  author  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty-five  volumes,  had  the  audacity  to  publish 

284 


CONVERSATION  285 

a  book  In  Praise  of  Silence.  "  Never,"  he  exclaims,  "  am  I 
more  truly  with  those  I  love  than  when  I  am  alone."  Our 
opinion  would  rather  coincide  with  that  of  the  amiable 
emigre"  whom  his  friends  urged  to  marry  the  object  of  his 
passion,  and  who  answered,  "But  then,  where  should  I 
spend  my  evenings  ?  "  To  draw  a  man  out  and  show  him 
what  he  is  capable  of,  it  is  necessary  for  a  woman  to  throw 
out  the  bait ;  an  ambition  to  please,  an  instinct  of  sym- 
pathy, a  thousand  fleeting  intangible  nothings,  veritable 
microbes  of  sentiment,  will  do  the  rest.  But  we  do  not 
hesitate  to  add  that,  without  men,  women  would  hardly  know 
how  to  talk.  Men  have  often  inveighed  against  the  loquacity,1 
the  backbiting,2  the  imprudence,  the  frivolity,  the  paltry 
and  scandalmongering  spirit  of  the  rudimentary  and  in- 
artistic conversations  that  women  engage  in  when  left  to 
themselves ;  this  kind  of  conversation  can  no  more  be  called 
conversation  than  certain  intrigues  can  be  called  love,  or 
than  daubing  a  house  front  can  be  called  painting  a 
picture. 

Certain  of  women's  little  defects  remain  defects  or  become 
virtues  according  as  the  women  know  or  do  not  know  how 
to  make  use  of  them.  Gossips,  the  women  who  can  think 
and  talk  certainly  are,  and  they  plume  themselves  on  the 
fact.  That  can  only  be  called  a  defect  in  those  who  have 
nothing  to  say.  Margaret  of  France  confesses  that  when 
she  opened  her  mouth,  it  was  long  before  she  shut  it  again.3 
Sometimes,  however,  women  are  troubled  with  a  certain  in- 
tellectual timidity  arising  either  from  their  education,  as 
their  friends  say,  or  from  their  temperament,  as  their  enemies 
maintain.  They  easily  make  up  their  minds,  but  can 
seldom  give  you  their  reasons;  their  intellect  clings  like 
ivy  to  some  principle  reputed  substantial,  in  other  words, 
one  that  is  affirmed  by  their  neighbours,  or  is  traditional,  or 
is  ingrained  from  childhood;  and  the  slightest  breath  of 
raillery  only  attaches  them  to  it  the  more  closely. 

This  disposition  would  be  fatal  to  a  writer.  To  write 
one  needs  the  power  to  think  for  oneself  and  to  give  virile 
expression  to  one's  thoughts,  at  the  risk  of  getting  a  name 

1  "With  the  tongue  seven  men  are  not  a  match  for  one  woman"  (Eras- 
mus, Colloquies). 

2  "  He  who  keeps  his  mouth  shut  knows  no  care"  (P.  Meyer). 
8  Heptameron,  Tale  10. 


286     THE   WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

for  paradox  or  eccentricity ;  but  for  conversation  nothing  ia 
less  necessary;  on  the  contrary,  the  trite  is  eminently 
serviceable.  Conversation  serves  to  test  current  ideas;  it 
gives  them  so  to  speak  a  stamp,  a  hall-mark,  a  label,  and 
women  understand  its  utility  all  the  better  because  they 
largely  avail  themselves  of  it  and  acquire  their  convictions 
through  it.  On  the  other  hand  they  possess  as  the  gift  of 
Nature  that  which  is  the  very  life  of  conversation, — facility 
of  assimilation  without  the  necessity  of  going  to  the  root 
of  the  matter;  the  ability  to  express  quickly,  clearly  and 
copiously  the  impression  of  the  moment;  a  feeling  for  fine 
shades ;  skill  in  fitly  garbing  their  thoughts,  and  in  main- 
taining them  with  the  necessary  unction,  grace,  and  warmth. 
No  more  is  needed. 

The  age  in  which  we  live,  priding  itself  on  its  practical 
spirit,  has  neglected  this  art  of  conversation.  We  have 
almost  entirely  lost  the  feeling  for  it  because  of  its  un pre- 
tentiousness, and  we  declare  it  unimportant  on  the  ground 
that  we  are  no  longer  platonists  and  can  no  longer  find  in 
mere  phrases  the  supreme  felicity  of  life.  Yet  it  is  an  art 
of  eminent  utility  in  regard  to  the  charm  of  existence, — a 
genuine  and  highly  intellectual  art,  an  art  that  in  the  18th 
century  was  one  of  our  national  glories.  By  their  witty 
conversation  the  ladies  of  the  house  of  Mortemart  did  more 
to  make  their  race  illustrious  than  all  the  artists  and  all 
the  soldiers.  Saint-Simon  has  given  us  an  excellent  descrip- 
tion of  the  talent  of  three  of  them,  who  boasted  neither 
of  mysticism  nor  perhaps  of  philosophy — Mesdames  de 
Montespan,  de  Fontevrault,  and  de  Thianges :  "  Their  court 
was  the  centre  of  wit,  and  wit  of  so  special  and  fine  a 
savour,  yet  withal  so  natural  and  pleasant,  that  it  came  to 
be  noted  for  its  unique  character.  .  .  .  All  three  possessed 
it  in  abundance,  and  appeared  to  impart  it  to  others.  This 
charming  sympathy  of  theirs  still  delights  us  in  the  sur- 
vivors of  those  whom  they  bred  up  and  attached  to  them- 
selves ;  you  could  tell  them  among  a  thousand  in  the  most 
miscellaneous  company."  That  was  the  goal  aimed  at  by 
the  16th-century  women,  since  it  made  men  immortal,  and 
gave  them  a  full  life  on  earth  meanwhile — since,  in  a  word, 
it  was  happiness. 

We  could  scarcely  realise  the  empire  certain  women 
exercised    if    we    neglected    to    take    into   account  their 


CONVERSATION  287 

wonderful  conversational  powers,  and  judged  them  merely 
by  their  writings,  or  by  their  letters  even.  Justly  or 
unjustly,  the  writings  of  Margaret  of  France  met  with 
no  success.  Marot,  in  complimenting  his  dear  princess  on 
them,  had  recourse  to  an  evasion  of  no  little  ingenuity : 
"  When  I  see  your  poems  only,  I  marvel  that  people  do 
not  admire  them  more;  but  when  I  hear  you  speak,  I 
veer  completely  round,  amazed  that  anyone  is  so  foolish 
as  to  marvel  thereat."  Like  many  others,  Margaret  held 
sway  through  conversation. 

Some  cross-grained  people  imagine  that  to  women  talking 
is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world,  that  friends  spring  up 
around  them  spontaneously,  that  the  art  reduces  itself  to 
finishing  their  toilette  by  lunch  time  and  then  letting  their 
tongues  wag  till  evening.  It  is  extremely  simple,  they  say. 
Simple !  They  think  it  sufficient  then  to  fling  their  doors 
open  on  certain  days,  and  to  deal  out  here  and  there  among 
their  guests  a  few  formal  and  chilling  inanities  !  "  Men  are 
so  scarce  that  when  you  have  them  you  should  rate  them 
very  high,"  said  Anne  of  France,  very  justly.  Simple,  not 
to  rest  satisfied  with  the  mere  glitter  of  small  talk,  but  to 
take  full  possession  of  one's  visitors,  to  form  a  warm  nest 
of  friends !  It  is  a  heavy  task.  If  in  these  days  women  no 
longer  exercise  any  serious  influence,  is  it  not  to  some  extent 
their  own  fault  ?  A  superficial  and  cramped  education  has 
often  rendered  them  incapable  of  effort.  They  are  afraid  of 
a  conversation  on  broad,  serious  lines;  they  will  not  be 
bothered  with  it.  But  to  form  a  set,  a  woman  must  belong 
to  herself  no  longer,  she  must  belong  to  her  friends  ;  conver- 
sation is  her  bread  of  life,  to  adopt  an  expressive  phrase,  and 
she  does  in  fact  become  so  habituated  to  her  part  that  she 
cannot  do  without  it;  she  must  talk,  if  only  with  her 
husband.     Mary  of  England  used  to  talk  to  Louis  XII. — 

Soubz  le  drap  couvert  d'orfebvrerie, 
Qui  reluisoit  en  fine  pierrerie, 
Passions  temps  en  dictz  solatieux 
Et  en  propos  plaisans  et  gratieux.1 

1  Beneath  the  broidered  sheets  we  lay — 
Sheets  flashing  with  gems  and  gold  — 
And  whiled  the  dreary  hours  away 

With  comfortable  tales  of  old, 
And  converse  debonair  and  gay. 


288      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Bereavements  and  misfortunes  only  render  conversation 
more  necessary.  Emilia  Pia,1  proscribed,  stripped  of  her 
all,  and  persecuted,  could  not  appear  in  the  streets  of  Rome 
without  an  adoring  throng  of  prelates  and  admirers,  just  as 
there  was  never  more  laughter  and  gossip  than  in  the 
crowded  cells  of  the  Reign  of  Terror. 

A  well-bred  man  considered  himself  literally  entitled  to 
command  the  conversational  abilities  of  women.  In  this 
connection  a  very  curious  misadventure  befell  some  judges 
of  the  Parliament  of  Paris  who  in  the  course  of  their  duty 
went  to  hold  assize  at  Poitiers.  In  the  heart  of  the  16th 
century,  when  everybody  went  the  pace,  and  the  air  was 
charged  with  moral  electricity,  there  was  still  found  one  town 
where  the  women  would  have  believed,  as  they  did  three 
hundred  years  earlier,  that  they  were  lost  if  they  opened 
their  doors.  Jean  Bouchet,2  loyal  Poitevin  as  he  was,  has 
described  the  boisterous  amusement  with  which  France 
heard  that  some  bashful  ladies  answered  these  poor  judges 
through  a  peep-hole  with  a  Non  possumus.  The  ladies 
of  Paris  themselves  sent  a  petition  to  their  "  colleagues  "  at 
Poitiers,  begging  them  not  to  let  their  husbands  die  of 
dulness.  The  ladies  of  Poitiers  replied  with  blushing 
cheeks :  "  'Tis  not  our  way  at  Poitiers."  They  hugged 
the  tradition  of  dulness. 

At  Lyons,  which  on  the  contrary  was  a  modem  town, 
squire  Sala,  chancing  to  be  at  his  window  one  fine  spring 
morning,  perceived  in  the  street  three  ladies  to  whom 
he  was  related,  going  on  pilgrimage  to  St.  Irenaeus.  To 
dash  after  them  and  make  them  promise  to  call  in  on 
their  way  back  was  the  affair  of  a  moment ;  and  then  he 
was  a  happy  man,  sure  of  a  pleasant  day.  We  are  no 
longer,  you  perceive,  at  Poitiers.  The  ladies  return ;  they 
dine  gaily  with  their  cousin,  and  pass  into  the  library; 
and  then,  during  a  desultory  conversation,  one  of  the  fair 
guests  mechanically  opens  a  Bible  at  the  book  of  Kings. 
Nothing  more  is  needed.  What  a  charming  subject !  The 
lady  avows   that   she   loves   to   lie  back  in  a  cosy  chair 

1  [One  of  the  Urbino  coterie.] 

2  [A  lawyer  of  Poitiers  who  is  said  to  have  composed  a  hundred  thousand 
verses,  mostly  dull.  He  called  himself  Le  Traverseur  den  voies  pe"rilleii$e» 
(the  traverser  of  perilous  ways),  and  wrote  moral  and  familiar  letters  and 
Lea  Regnars  (foxes)  traveraant  lea  votes  pirilleusea.] 


CONVERSATION  289 

and  read  the  history  of  the  kings  of  France  ;  everyone  joins 
in  the  conversation  and  cites  some  notable  fact  about 
royalty;  and  thus  the  procession  defiles  past — Alexander, 
Agis,  Brennus,  Caesar,  the  Merovingians,  the  classic  heroes 
{Charlemagne,  Godfrey  of  Bouillon),  divers  kings  of  France, 
Louis  surnamed  the  Fat,  Philip  the  August,  the  noble  St. 
Louis,  all  the  princes  of  the  15th  century;  finally  Sala 
promises  to  relate  a  story  of  Francis  I.  Unhappily  it  is 
long  past  the  hour  for  separating,  for  tearing  themselves 
from  this  intoxicating  pastime ;  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  when 
they  got  home  these  ladies  found  that  their  husbands  had 
put  the  lights  out. 

If  this  was  bondage  the  ladies  took  it  in  very  good  part, 
and  the  men  left  nothing  undone  to  soften  it  for  them.  We 
have  all  known  men  expert  in  the  manipulation  of  feminine 
conversations,  and  deriving  from  them  a  large  measure  of 
influence;  for  instance  (to  speak  only  of  the  dead),  Monsignor 
Dupanloup,1  or  in  a  different  kind  M.  Me'rime'e,  that  waif  from 
the  16th  century,  who  combined  with  extraordinary  scepti- 
cism an  incurable  impressibility,  and,  while  free  in  mind 
and  heart,  was  always  leaning  on  a  woman !  The  men  of 
the  16th  century  became  charmers.  A  political  exile  from 
Milan,  fresh  from  a  milieu  of  women — the  physician  Mar- 
liano — acquired  an  unprecedented  influence  in  the  Low 
Countries  by  the  mere  attractiveness  of  his  conversation ; 
people  vied  with  each  other  in  praising  its  suavity,  its 
"* heavenly  ambrosia,"  its  "honey,"  its  "sweetness." 

Men  moulded  by  the  hands  of  Italian  ladies  could  be 
distinguished  among  a  thousand;  they  could  talk  about 
anything  and  everything.  Many  writers  of  eminent  ability 
would  have  gained  much  by  being  less  serious. 

No  one  could  help  succumbing  to  this  charm ;  and  in 
truth  it  is  easy  to  believe  that  the  platonists  sought 
happiness  from  conversation,  futile  as  it  was  reputed  to  be, 
since  they  were  constantly  saying :  "  I  was  happy,  we  arc 
all  happy."  Cardan  himself  recalls  with  enthusiasm  the 
time  when  he  was  supposed  to  be  studying  medicine  at 

J[The  brilliant  Bishop  of  Orleans  (1802-1878),  noted  equally  for  his 
eloquence,  his  pugnacity,  and  the  huge  blue  umbrella  he  carried  on  sunny 
days.  It  was  said  of  him  that  he  was  "a  journalist  who  had  strayed  into 
a  bishopric."  He  wrote  Letters  on  the  Education  of  Girls,  and  especially 
opposed  the  opening  of  university  courses  to  girls  :  he  did  not  wish  them 
to  go  "  from  the  bosom  of  the  Church  to  the  arms  of  the  University."] 

T 


290      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Venice :  "  I  was  happy."1  Ever  the  same  word !  People 
cultivated  their  happiness. 

"Ferrara,"  says  Lamartine,  "resembled  a  colony  from 
the  court  of  Augustus,  Leo  X.,  or  the  Medici;  cultured 
princes — princesses  who  were  heroines  of  love,  poetry,  or 
romance, — cardinals  aspiring  to  the  papacy — scholars — 
artists — poets  half  knights,  half  bards — met  there  every 
evening,  in  the  splendid  halls  of  Ercole  d'Este,  in  town  or 
country." 

At  Urbino,  the  conversations  were  broken  by  riding- 
parties,  hawking  expeditions,  balls,  sports,  music;  life 
resembled  a  kaleidoscope,  but  wit  slipped  into  every  pattern 
as  the  necessary  element  of  beauty.  The  duke  was  in  bad 
health  and  used  to  retire  early.  After  his  departure  the 
evening  flew  by  delightfully  :  the  young  duchess  "seems  a 
chain  holding  us  all  pleasantly  together,"  said  Castiglione. 
There  was  no  standing  on  ceremony;  she  was  always  the 
centre  of  a  circle  composed  of  men  or  women  alternately  as 
chance  directed.  In  addition  to  the  regular  group,  the 
company  pretty  often  included  some  accomplished  stranger, 
some  scholar  or  artist  who  happened  to  be  passing  through. 
They  spoke  freely  to  the  ladies  on  a  footing  of  friendliness. 
As  the  evening  drew  on,  some  went  off  for  dancing  or  music, 
the  others  continued  to  start  discussions  or  tell  stories 
enlivened  with  transparent  allegories.  In  summer  this 
brilliant  reunion  was  held  in  the  garden. 

Our  pictures  of  society  in  olden  times  may  often  give 
the  impression  that  only  wolves,  lions,  wild  beasts,  or  else 
strutting  cocks  and  clucking  hens  served  as  models.  But 
to  paint  this  polished  society  of  Urbino,  so  enthusiastically 
bent  on  happiness,  we  should  need  colours  no  palette 
contains, — transparencies  of  the  Grecian  sky,  the  indigo 
of  certain  seas,  the  liquid  azure  of  certain  eyes.  For 
more  than  a  century  the  court  of  Urbino  was  regarded  as 
the  supreme  exemplar ;  in  the  17th  century  the  Hotel  de 
Rambouillet  was  still  striving  to  make  itself  a  copy  of  it ; 
unluckily  such  things  as  these  are  not  easily  copied. 

*He  adds:  "We  gambled,  played  music,  took  walks,  supped,  and 
•worked  (not  often  that) :  no  cares,  no  anxieties  !  We  were  often  with  the 
Venetian  nobles  :  my  life  flourished  like  a  growing  plant.  Nothing  could 
be  more  pleasant  than  that  life,  which  lasted  five  years  and  a  half 
(September,  1526— February,  1532)  :  we  used  to  chat  with  the  prefect, 
whose  palace  was  our  kingdom  and  rostrum." 


CONVERSATION  291 

It  would  be  difficult  eDOugh  to  deduce  from  the  con- 
versations at  Urbino  a  series  of  rules  for  the  art.  No 
programme  was  pasted  on  the  walls.  But  still  we  may  note 
certain  principles :  a  remarkable  good-fellowship,  ranging 
from  perfect  courtesy  to  affectionate  familiarity ;  a  real 
sentiment  of  equality,  genuine  equality,  springing  from  an 
exact  appreciation  of  the  various  degrees  of  worth,  and 
consequently  in  that  sense  aristocratic;  finally  and  especially, 
freedom,  the  most  absolute  openness  of  mind,  the  absence  of 
ambitions  and  pretensions,  at  any  rate  so  far  as  appeared ;  a 
joyous  skilfulness  in  playing  on  the  surface  of  things,  or  in 
striking  out  into  the  vastest  regions  of  thought  without 
effort  or  constraint. 

Throughout  Italy  a  somewhat  Ciceronian  and  Attic 
beauty  of  form  played  a  highly  important  part  in  conver- 
sation. Men  were  distinguished  by  their  dignity  of  style 
and  by  a  high-bred  refinement  free  from  the  slightest  taint 
of  the  stable.  We  can  only  judge  of  their  manner  of  talk 
indirectly,  through  their  letters ;  but  an  idea  of  it  may  be 
gained  from  the  letters  of  Bembo,  Castiglione,  and  others,. 
in  which  a  lady  could  see  how  to  win  men's  hearts 
while  retaining  all  womanliness  of  style,  and  how  much 
affection — whether  it  be  called  love,  friendship,  or  simply  a 
good  understanding — gains  by  displaying  itself  delicately. 
Women  played  the  part  of  judges :  they  were  permitted,  if 
need  were,  to  stand  on  their  dignity,  to  be  silent  or  to 
speak  freely  at  pleasure;  but  no  man  could  succeed  without 
a  highly  suave  manner;  merit  had  to  be  shown  by  some 
external  mark :  "  Merit  is  not  enough  unless  prolific  in  the 
outward  graces  on  which  the  praiseworthiness  of  actions 
depends."  But  appearances  were  sometimes  sufficient. 
Even  in  their  portraits,  men  like  Castiglione  retain  a  some- 
thing infinitely  engaging  and  attractive — a  bloom  on  the 
lips,  a  softness  in  the  eyes.1  When  at  Venice  we  come  upon 
portraits  of  men  all  energy  and  self-assertion,  the  inference 
is  that  the  women  must  have  lost  their  empire ;  and  we  do 
in  fact  see  opposite  them  portraits  of  passive  women,  all 
softness  and  sensuousness. 

And  these  tender  lips  that  opened  only  to  speak  to 
women,  these  caressing  eyes,  do  not  deceive  us.  The  prattle 
of  these  men  was  impregnated  with  a  dove-like  gentleness, 

1  Raphael's  portrait  of  Castiglione  in  the  Louvre. 


292      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

an  adoration,  in  appearance  wholly  spiritual,  for  the 
beautiful.  Castiglione,  an  eminently  graceful,  caressing, 
and  persuasive  talker,  spoke  with  fluency,  with  something 
of  flabbiness  and  redundance,  perhaps — a  sort  of  perfumed 
talk,  with  nothing  of  "French  filthiness,"  as  he  said, 
Vittoria  Colonna  wrote  a  charming  letter  to  Paul  Jove,  in 
which  she  spoke  with  great  enthusiasm  of  "her"  divine 
Bembo.  Paul  Jove  lost  no  time  in  passing  this  letter  on  to 
Bembo.  "  I  send  you,"  he  writes,  "  a  letter  from  your  lady- 
love, the  most  illustrious  marchioness.  It  is  very  pretty, 
and  speaks  of  you,  and  I  send  it  you  at  once  without  any  of 
that  resentment  which  rivals  are  so  apt  to  feel,  for  I  am 
fully  assured  that  Her  Excellency's  love  for  your  lordship 
is  in  all  points  like  to  my  own  love  for  her,  that  is, 
celestial,  holy,  altogether  platonic.  Her  Excellency  is 
come  from  Ischia  to  Naples  with  the  other  noble  dames; 
I  mean  the  serene  Amalfia  and  the  superb  Vasta,  with 
the  Francavila,  a  mirror  of  virtue  and  verily  a  matchless 
beauty." 

Apart  from  the  graces  of  manner,  the  charm  of  these 
relations  between  the  ladies  and  the  prelates  sprang  from 
their  perfect  skill  in  effacing  their  own  personality,  in 
suggesting  that  what  they  were  giving  was  pure  soul — for 
suggestion  was  enough.  A  boor  will  strut  about,  listen  to 
his  own  voice,  arrange  his  smile,  select  his  words  with  a 
view  to  effect — little  absurdities,  much  less  easy  to  endure 
than  a  really  serious  fault.  It  was  by  their  overweening 
though  unconscious  self-conceit  that  the  inferior  clergy 
made  themselves  so  odious  in  Renaissance  society ;  the 
monk  would  talk  of  nothing  but  his  order,  the  parish  parson 
fancied  that  no  service  was  so  attractive  as  his,  and  that 
good  music  was  not  to  be  heard  except  in  his  church.1 
They  had  better  have  been  less  virtuous — and  less  fatiguing. 

Conversation  can  glide  along  like  a  shallow  stream.  A 
pleasant  talker  is  not  always  capable  of  writing  or  painting 
profundities;  there  is  something  more  beautiful  than  a 
picture,  and  that  is  the  face  of  the  woman  watching  him 
and  enjoying  his  talk.     In  those  days  they  ridiculed — and 

*Like  the  good  cure*  who,  seeing  a  lady  shedding  hot  tears  at  the 
conclusion  of  a  superb  excdtet,  charitably  approached  her  to  console  her  for 
what  he  believed  to  be  the  effect  of  the  music,  and  stopped  aghast  when 
the  good  dame  replied.  **  Ah  !  I  fancied  I  heard  my  poor  dead  donkey  ! " 


CONVERSATION  29b 

not  without  cause — certain  brilliant  talkers  clever  enough 
to  win  a  wide-spread  renown  (without  ruining  their  health 
by  profound  study  of  Horace  or  Virgil)  by  nothing  in  the 
world  but  talking  on  every  subject  in  the  same  airy  way — 
appearing  to  have  forgotten  half  they  knew  and  to  know  half 
they  had  forgotten — able  to  bring  in  without  false  modesty 
a  stanza  pat  to  the  occasion.  Such  talkers  are  in  reality 
very  second-rate,  and  it  is  not  long  before  they  get 
into  difficulties.  Sometimes  abstruse  subjects  crop  up 
without  warning  in  a  drawing-room,  and  then  the  conver- 
sation takes  a  course  which  gives  opportunity  for  judging 
men.  At  the  instant  when  it  appears  to  be  merely  dis- 
porting itself  on  the  surface,  shining  in  full  view,  it  takes  a 
sudden  plunge,  rises  again,  starts  on  another  flight  and  again 
plunges ;  to  follow  it  demands  an  intellectual  force  and 
suppleness  that  cannot  be  improvised.  We  can  see  this  from 
the  portrait  Castiglione  draws  of  the  duke  of  Urbino.  The 
duke,  notwithstanding  his  habit  of  keeping  early  hours, 
was  a  good  talker,  like  his  guests ;  his  speech  was  bland, 
polished,  fluent,  and  picturesque ;  he  brought  down  his  bird 
with  one  shot.  But  under  this  appearance  of  ease  and 
readiness  he  possessed  an  unequalled  fund  of  information. 
He  could  reel  off  long  passages  from  all  the  classical  writers, 
particularly  from  Cicero.  He  spoke  ancient  Greek  perfectly, 
and  lived  by  choice  in  intimate  fellowship  with  the  Greeks 
— with  Lucian,  and  more  especially  with  Xenophon,  whom 
he  called  "  the  Siren  of  antiquity."  "  We  used  to  call  the 
duke,"  adds  Castiglione,  "  a  second  Siren." 

Ancient  and  modern  history,  geography,  the  learning  of 
the  East,  were  familiar  to  him.  He  died  at  thirty-six,  after 
a  long  and  very  painful  illness;  he  had  studied  his  com- 
plaint, and  watched  the  slow-paced  approach  of  death, 
knowing  perfectly  that  neither  the  pleasant  climate  of 
Urbino  nor  the  most  assiduous  attentions  would  retard 
it  by  an  hour.  And  yet,  even  under  the  burden  of  his  last 
anguish,  he  retained  full  possession  of  his  intellect,  with  its 
charm  and  flame  and  serenity.  His  friends  pretended  not 
to  have  given  up  hope :  "  Why  envy  me  so  desirable  a 
blessing  ?  "  he  said  to  them  gently.  "  To  be  freed  from  this 
load  of  terrible  suffering — tell  me,  is  not  that  a  blessing  ?  " 
At  the  very  last  he  turned  to  Castiglione  and  recited  to  him 
one   of  the   finest  passages  in  Virgil.      He  died  talking 


294      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Thus,  with  noble  colloquies  like  these,  radiant  with  natural 
kindliness,  men  lulled  even  pain  asleep. 

Philosophy  and  love  were  naturally  frequent  subjects  of 
conversation.  People  sought  by  their  means  to  refine  their 
sentiments,  to  analyse  themselves,  to  set  themselves  in- 
genious problems  to  be  investigated  at  leisure,  to  spiritualise 
love.     For  example : 

"  Is  it  easier  to  feign  love  than  to  dissemble  it? — Answer: 
Yes,  because  a  voluntary  act  is  always  easier  than  an  in- 
voluntary one." 

"  Is  it  more  meritorious  for  love  to  lead  the  wise  to  folly 
than  fools  to  wisdom  ? — No  ;  it  is  better  to  build  up  than  to 
destroy,  and  you  can  build  nothing  on  folly." 

"  Is  excess  of  love  fatal  ? — Galen  says  yes ;  indirectly, 
through  disease." 

"  Who  loves  the  more  easily  ? — Woman,  because  of  her 
fickle  nature  ? " 

"  Who  can  best  dispense  with  love  ? — Woman." 

"  Which  is  easier,  to  win  love  or  to  keep  it  ? — To  keep  it." 

"  After  perseverance,  what  is  the  best  proof  of  love  ? — 
The  sharing  of  joys  and  sorrows." 

■  Which  is  the  stronger,  hate  or  love  ? — Love." 

"  Can  a  miser  love  ? — Yes,  love  can  destroy  avarice." 

And  so  on. 

Bembo,  in  a  little  book  dedicated  to  Lucretia  Borgia  (for 
three  years  the  object  of  his  passionate  admiration),  has  left 
us  an  account  of  three  days  of  conversation  which  followed 
a  wedding.  After  a  charming  fete,  in  which  young  maidens 
furnished  with  tuneful  viols  had  chanted  hymns  for  and 
against  love  in  turn,  three  noble  damsels  remained  in  dis- 
course with  three  gentlemen  on  a  flowery  lawn,  amid  marble 
fountains  and  well-trimmed  groves. 

One  of  their  number,  selected  as  the  detractor  of  love, 
conscientiously  makes  the  most  of  its  bitternesses,  despairs, 
tears,  revolts,  catastrophes.  A  discussion  ensues,  so  search- 
ing, so  touching,  that  at  times  real  tears  are  shed.  The 
people  who  are  perpetually  at  a  white  heat  and  flaunt  a 
salamander  as  their  emblem  come  in  for  some  ridicule. 
But  with  what  warmth  the  friends  of  love  take  up  the 
defence  of  this  divinity,  who  is  represented  as  nude  because 
he  is  devoid  of  reason ;  as  a  child,  because  like  Medea 
he  inspires  eternal  youthfulness;  and  torch  in  hand,  because 


CONVERSATION  295 

in  his  school  there  is  much  burning  of  fingers!  It  is  towards 
this  little  torch  that  the  whole  world  flits  and  gravitates 
like  a  swarm  of  moths,  while  the  divine  archer  speeds  his 
shaft  at  the  heart  of  his  victim. 

Love,  they  add,  is  strength  and  life.  When  a  man  loves, 
he  has  no  fear  of  death.  One  of  the  company  even  declares 
in  his  excitement  that  he  invites  death,  and  when  the  rest 
twit  him  with  being  beside  himself,  he  persists,  and 
explains  his  subtle  languor ;  he  invites  death,  but  does 
not  desire  that  most  miserable  condition  !  In  spite  of  the 
extreme  gravity  and  conviction  with  which  these  questions 
of  the  heart  were  always  handled  in  Italy,  the  company 
cannot  here  repress  a  smile.  But  the  speaker  sees  nothing 
and  waxes  warm ;  his  martyrdom  is  only  too  serious ;  the 
flame  of  love  can  only  be  extinguished  in  a  "  lake  of  tears." 
And  another  makes  answer :  "  When  you  see  in  famous 
sanctuaries  a  heap  of  votive  offerings  bearing  witness  to  the 
innumerable  perils  of  the  sea,  do  you  go  and  deny  that 
these  perils  exist,  or  resign  yourself  never  to  set  foot  on  a 
boat  ?  You  do  not,  I  trow.  Well,  we  must  likewise  accept 
love's  crosses  with  resignation."  And  thereupon  he  glow- 
ingly describes  its  advantages. 

At  the  end  of  three  days,  a  hermit  closes  the  discussion 
with  a  short  and  sedative  discourse  on  the  vanity  of  the 
world ! 

Naturally  conversation,  even  in  Italy,  did  not  always  soar  to 
such  altitudes.  It  passed  easily  from  a  vast  subject  to  a  pin's 
point ;  to  make  bricks  without  straw  was  a  mark  of  talent ! 
It  was  not  everyone  who  had  the  wit  to  frame  an  original 
remark  about  the  weather,  and  follow  it  up  with  a  brilliant 
firework  display  of  paradox  !  What  did  the  idea  matter,  so 
long  as  the  shaft  flew  home  ?  They  would  just  as  soon 
concern  themselves  about  the  canvas  a  picture  was  painted 
on  !  They  expatiated  at  leisure  on  a  large  subject;  but  no 
one  dwelt  on  trifles ;  they  laughed,  wept,  sparkled,  they 
were  pleasant  and  gay,  elegant,  coquettish,  artistic ;  *  and  all 

1 0  liberty  aujourd'hui  clairsemee 
Et  cher  vendue,  on  te  doit  bien  servir, 
Car  en  tous  lieux  souvent  est  reclamee. 

(Alione.) 

[0  liberty,  to-day  so  rare 
And  dear  sold,  we  must  serve  thee  well, 
For  thou  art  asked  for  everywhere.] 


296      THE   WOMEN   OF   THE  RENAISSANCE 

that  they  said  was  excellently  expressed,  with  a  sure,  keen, 
delicate  touch.  Conversation  took  a  feminine  stamp  which 
it  had  never  had  in  olden  times;  it  was  the  art  of  paying 
honourable  court  to  a  lady. 

The  French  did  not  approve  of  conversation  taking  this 
sentimental  and  emotional  turn.  They  talked  to  amuse 
themselves,  for  laughter's  sake.  To  laugh  was  their  chief 
concern ;  it  was  a  mark  of  taste  to  take  everything  with  a 
laugh,  even  affairs  of  the  heart;  and  any  genuineness  of 
sentiment  was  sure  to  appear  ridiculous,  whereas  in  Italy  a 
false  sentiment  strove  to  appear  genuine.  Moreover,  to 
speak  of  serious  things,  to  appear  in  any  other  character 
than  that  of  an  absolutely  useless  and  incapable  man,  far 
above  (or  below)  everything  literary,  was  unfashionable. 
On  the  other  hand  the  French  appreciated  the  unexpected, 
a  crispness  of  phrase,  the  sword-play  of  wit,  smart  retorts.1 
Conversation  was  a  duel.  The  Frenchmen  of  that  time  were 
inimitable  in  verve  and  wit;  they  had  a  really  unrivalled 
ease  and  sprightliness  of  manner.  When  the  Italians  tried 
to  imitate  them,  they  only  succeeded  in  losing  their  suavity 
and  making  themselves  look  foolish. 

At  the  court  of— Francis  I.  talking  and  flirting  were 
subdued  to  no  platonic  considerations.  If  a  man  was 
inspired  with  a  good  thing,  he  said  it  frankly  and  bluntly 
and  with  much  gesturing.  As  La  Bruyere  observes :  "  It 
costs  women  little  to  tell  what  they  do  not  feel ;  it  costs 
men  still  less  to  tell  what  they  do  feel " ; 2  and  the  more 
crudely  the  latter  expressed  themselves,  the  more  they  were 
looked  upon  as  right  good  fellows.  A  woman  of  the  world 
would  listen  to  anything,  and  reply  with  her  "yes "  or  "  no/* 
without  ever  taking  offence. 

The  more  the  domination  of  man  asserted  itself,  the  more 
pronounced  this  liberty  in  word  and  action  became,  and 
women  came  to  think  that  they  could  employ  no  better 
means  of  getting  even  with  men  than  to  adopt  the  language 

1  Here  is  an  example:  "Why,  Dagoucin,"  says  Simontaut,  "don't  you 
yet  know  that  women  have  neither  love  nor  regret?" — "I  don't  yet  know 
it,"  he  replies,  "  for  I  have  never  dared  try  for  their  love,  for  fear  of  finding 
less  than  I  hope  for." — "  You  live  on  faith  and  hope,  then,"  says  Nomerfide, 
"  as  the  plover  lives  on  wind  ?  You  are  very  easy  to  feed."  (Heptameron, 
Tale  32.) 

"2When  women  confess,  they  always  tell  what  they  have  not  done." 
(Old  Italian  proverb.) 


CONVERSATION  297 

of  the  barrack-room,  and  make  frequent  quotations  from  the 
grossest  books.  They  made  men  a  present  of  their  garters. 
Naturally  the  men  were  very  well  pleased,  by  no  means 
detesting  women  of  so  facile  a  disposition.  A  German 
would  entertain  the  young  lady  next  him  at  table  with  tom- 
foolery of  the  coarsest  description,  prating,  for  instance, 
about  heavy  drinking,  or  low-necked  dresses,  or  a  woman 
showing  her  leg  or  hunting  for  fleas :  or  perhaps,  to  appear 
intellectual,  he  would  maintain  that  evil  has  no  real  exis- 
tence, but  is  only  a  human  invention.  Another  would  allow 
fun  to  be  poked  at  his  wife  or  fiance'e.  Rabelais  and  Hiitten 
were  the  shining  lights  of  this  class  of  talkers.  Even 
Savonarola,  in  his  character  of  a  monk  of  the  people,  some- 
times went  very  near  the  border  line ;  here  and  there  in  his 
sermons  there  are  phrases  at  which  a  salted  skipper  would 
blush. 

Italian  platonism  was  no  enemy  to  laughter ;  it  was  quite 
the  other  way.  In  the  evening  after  dinner  (the  time  when 
in  these  days  men  are  lighting  their  cigars),  men  who 
had  wit  and  gaiety  and  no  cares  (three  conditions  for  which 
the  cigar  alone  would  hardly  be  a  sufficient  substitute), 
laughed  without  stint  and  told  pretty  warm  stories  as  a 
relaxation  from  the  ideal;  but  as  the  ladies  were  present 
and  no  one  would  have  dreamt  of  doing  without  them,  form 
was  always  more  carefully  studied.  Platonism  was  nothing 
if  not  fastidious,  correct,  and  ceremonious ;  and  a  platonist, 
even  when  retailing  a  broad  joke  or  when  there  was  no 
occasion  to  put  himself  about,  did  not  cease  to  employ 
exquisite  phraseology. 

The  French,  on  the  contrary,  laughed  somewhat  boister- 
ously after  dinner,  or  on  one  of  those  oppressive  afternoons 
when  the  dull  sky  seems  to  seize  us  like  mice  in  a  trap. 
Our  passion  for  broad  wit  has  never  allowed  itself  to  be 
cooled  by  the  exhortations  of  moralists x  or  preachers.  Nor 
were  ladies  more  successful  in  selecting  subjects  for  conver- 
sation ;  they  had  either  to  leave  us  to  our  own  devices  and 
be  regarded  as  nuisances,  or  to  pitch  their  tune  to  the  same 

1  Rusticus  est  vere,  qui  turpia  de  muliere 
Dicit,  nam  vere  sumus  omnes  de  muliere. 

(Facetus. ) 

[He  is  truly  a  boor  who  speaks  ill  of  women,  for  verily  we  are  all  of 
woman  born.] 


298      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

key.  An  awkward  dilemma  for  them!  They  faced  the 
music,  and  contented  themselves  with  declining  to  laugh 
when  the  jest  displeased  them ;  but  in  their  hearts  they 
preferred  a  lady's  man  who  knew  how  to  show  them  tender- 
ness and  respect. 

Conversation  is  naturally  composed  of  dialogues.  When- 
ever it  attains  a  certain  height,  contradiction  is  necessary  to 
keep  the  ball  rolling.  Some  one  has  said  that  contradiction 
is  woman's  forte,  and  in  this  connection  La  Fontaine  retold 
the  old  fable  about  the  drowned  woman  whose  corpse,  from 
sheer  perversity,  insisted  on  floating  up  stream. 

That  may  be  true  of  worn,  untutored  women,  good 
housewives  to  whom  the  artifices  of  taste  are  a  sealed  book. 
The  woman  of  fashion,  preferring  to  profit  by  all  her 
privileges,  hovers  over  a  conversation,  mingling  with  it 
only  to  throw  out  a  suggestion,  a  criticism,  a  reflection,  an 
argument,  or  to  give  a  finishing  touch.  Margaret,  for 
instance,  launched  this  aphorism  in  the  midst  of  a  discussion 
on  love :  "  Women  of  large  heart  yield  rather  to  the  spirit  of 
vengeance  than  to  the  tenderness  of  love."  l 

It  was  often  a  man  who  had  to  devote  himself  to  this  duty 
of  contradiction  ;  intellectual  epicures  took  rather  kindly  to 
the  little  amusement,  and  acquitted  themselves  with  at  least 
every  appearance  of  conviction.  It  was  even  a  mark  of 
genuine  dilettantism  to  maintain  now  one  idea,  now  the 
contrary,  like  Filippo  Beroaldo,2  who  has  recorded  two  of 
his  declarations,  one  in  favour  of  drunkenness,  the  other 
against  it.  The  question  of  the  merits  and  defects  of  women 
furnished  in  France  an  inexhaustible  theme  for  social 
debate,  and  there  was  no  lack  of  disputants  on  either  side. 
In  Italy  this  subject  was  less  popular,  because  the  ranks  of 
the  anti-feminists  were  thinner.  At  Urbino,  however, 
Fregoso  3  threw  himself  into  the  ungrateful  task  of  attack- 
ing women,  and  valiantly  depicted  them  as  imperfect  animals 

1  Heptamrron,  Tale  62. 

2  [Filippo  Beroaldo  (1453-1505),  professor  of  ancient  literature  at  Bologna, 
so  learned  that  Pico  della  Mirandola  called  him  the  '  Living  Library.'  Hia 
most  curious  work  ia  Declamatio  ebriosi,  scortatoris  et  aleatoris,  in  which 
three  brothers,  a  drunkard,  a  lecher,  and  a  dicer,  dispute  among  themselves 
which  of  them,  being  the  most  vicious,  their  father  will  disinherit.] 

'[Italian  poet  (1445-1515)  attached  to  the  court  of  Ludovico  il  Moro  at 
Milan.  When  Ludovico  was  captured  by  the  French,  Fregoso  went  int« 
seclusion  and  became  known  as  the  Friend  of  Solitude.] 


CONVERSATION  299 

of  no  intrinsic  value,  whom  it  was  impossible  to  compare 
with  men,  upon  whom  only  modesty  and  self-respect  had 
any  restraining  power,  and  whose  few  merits  were  a  purely 
artificial  endowment. 

Yet,  as  it  was  impossible  to  be  always  engaged  in 
dialogues  or  debates,  there  was  a  large  field  for  clever 
retailers  of  anecdotes  and  stories  grave  and  gay,  and  the 
talent  was  cultivated  to  perfection  by  certain  men  of  the 
world.  Among  these  witty  story-tellers  we  find  another 
member  of  the  Mortemart  family,  Aimery  de  Mortemart, 
and  the  name  of  Germain  de  Bonneval  used  also  to  be  cited. 

Story-telling  in  Italy  was  conducted  with  the  same 
gravity  and  method  that  were  carried  into  everything.  A 
"  queen  "  was  first  elected,1  and  she  called  upon  each  mem- 
ber of  the  company  in  turn.  The  stories  very  easily  verged 
towards  salaciousness,  but  art  ennobles  everything !  Firen- 
zuola  dedicated  a  collection  of  such  stories  to  the  memory 
of  an  idolised  lady  whom  he  calls  his  Diotima,  his  Monica, 
his  Vittoria  Colonna. 

In  France,  story-telling  ranked  high  among  social  amuse- 
ments, filling  up  the  interval  between  mass  and  vespers. 
Everyone  had  fair  notice  of  his  turn  to  speak,  and  made 
provision  accordingly,  whetting  his  own  invention  on  what 
fell  from  the  lips  of  others.  The  Heptameron  is,  so  to 
speak,  nothing  but  a  succession  of  conferences  (without  the 
platform  and  the  glass  of  water),  at  which  each  person 
present  contributes  his  mite  to  the  discussion.  Sometimes 
the  remarks  are  rather  free ;  when  the  anecdote  is  likely  to 
overstep  the  recognised  limits,  the  speaker  saves  himself  by 
a  gentle  preliminary  precaution : 

Si  ce  n'estoit  que  j'ay  peur  d'offenser 

La  nettete  de  vos  chastea  oreilles. — Des  P&iers.'2 

Margaret  of  France,  who  was  not  specially  bashful,  "  could 
tell  a  capital  story,  and  could  laugh,  too,  when  she  heard  one." 

1  An  attempt  was  made  to  revive  this  system  in  certain  notable  salons  of 
the  18th  century.  The  rules  for  the  Lanturdus  drawn  up  in  Madame 
Geoffrin's  salon  included  the  obligation  of  being  just,  loyal,  cheerful  and 
kindly  ;  they  forbade  one  to  grow  old,  that  is,  to  become  peevish  and  mis- 
anthropical. The  sittings  held  under  the  direction  of  a  "queen"  were 
divided  into  two  parts,  one  devoted  to  song,  poetry  and  fac&ies,  the  other 
to  philosophy. 

2  But  that  I  fear  to  shock  beyond  forgiveness 
The  soilless  purity  of  your  chaste  ears. 


s 


300      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Another  art  which  was  still  highly  appreciated — a  very 
elegant,  charming,  and  widely  cultivated  art — was  that  of 
impromptu  verse-making — a  pastime  for  prelates  and  men 
of  keen  literary  tastes.  Leo  X.1  and  Octovien  de  Saint- 
Gelais  *  practised  it  with  eminent  success. 

Boutrimes,  or  "  ventes  d'amour,"  though  somewhat  anti- 
quated, contributed  a  share  to  the  entertainment.  A  man 
gave  a  lady,  or  vice  versa,  the  name  of  some  flower,  and  a 
response  had  to  be  made  in  verse  of  as  epigrammatic  or 
complimentary  a  turn  as  possible.  As  aids  to  improvisation, 
manuals  of  polite  rhymes  were  published. 

Such  was  happiness !  Conversation  in  its  various  forms 
was  the  port  to  which  the  barque  of  life  made  under  full 
sail,  trimmed  with  all  the  safeguards,  manoeuvred  with  all 
the  dexterities  which  we  have  described !  And  the  diffi- 
culties were  compensated  by  the  satisfaction  derived  from 
bringing  souls  into  communion  one  with  another,  from 
closely  uniting  them,  welding  them  in  one  enthusiasm  of 
affection.  Such  a  result  is  beyond  the  attainment  of 
writing.  Genuine  exquisites  like  Inghirami  thought  writing 
was  overdone,  and  if  they  employed  the  pen  it  was  from 
necessity,  or  at  most  to  preserve  for  posterity  the  conversa- 
tions, the  tales,  the  sonnets  that  pleased  them;  when  a 
work  involving  time  and  labour  was  asked  of  them,  they 
wrapped  themselves  in  an  air  of  austere  solemnity,  like 
people  going  to  a  funeral.  All  these  brilliant  talkers  lived 
quiet  lives  out  of  the  public  eye,  seldom  shifting  their 
quarters,  with  none  of  that  moral  trepidation  in  which  the 
railway  and  the  telegraph  keep  us ;  they  were  light-hearted 
but  not  shallow,  with  something  of  oriental  insouciance, 

1  He  used  to  amuse  himself  with  a  drunken  impromptu-monger,  a  Roman 
named  Querno,  whom  he  jestingly  called  Archipoeta.    Querno  says  to  him : 

Archipoeta  facit  versus  pro  mille  poetis. 

[Arch-poet  makes  enough  verses  for  a  thousand  poets] 
Leo  replies : 

Et  pro  mille  aliis  Archipoeta  bibit. 

[And  drinks  enough  for  another  thousand] 
Archipoeta  responds : 

Porrige  quod  faciat  mihi  carmina  docta,  Falernum, 

[Give  me  some  Falernian,  to  inspire  my  song] 
and  Leo : 

Hoc  etiam  enervat  debilitatque  pedes. 

[That  also  renders  your  feet  weak  and  shaky] 
l[A  clerical  poet  (1466-1502)  who  translated  Ovid's  Epistles  into  French. 


CONVERSATION  301 

never  forgetting  that  man  has  but  one  life  on  this  nether 
world,  squandering  their  wealth  of  wit  in  lavish  profusion, 
with  no  attempt  to  economise  it  in  order  to  sell  specimens 
to  an  innominate  mob.  They  enjoyed  to  the  full  the  ex- 
quisite pleasure  of  letting  their  ideas  float  off  at  the  mercy 
of  chance;  their  thoughts  took  flight  and  were  seen  no 
more,  it  is  true ;  they  burst  like  bubbles  in  the  air ;  but 
there  remained  the  wherewithal  to  shape  others  like 
them. 

And  here  was  the  great  sphere  of  women.  Their  mission 
was  to  cause  this  happiness  to  blossom,  to  tend  it,  nurture 
it,  turn  it  to  fitting  use — to  make  these  bubbles  a  source 
of  good. 

This  duty  like  every  other  had  stern  laws.  It  was  not 
enough  to  be  a  "  queen "  by  election,  or  even  by  birthright, 
to  fancy  that  the  goal  was  attained. 

Women's  sway  only  imposed  itself  by  dint  of  patience, 
tact,  and  a  nice  regard  for  detail,  and  above  all  at  the  cost 
of  genuine  self-denial.  How  many  little  trials  and  crosses 
had  to  be  endured !  To  make  herself  agreeable  to  the 
starched  Spaniard  and  the  boastful  Neapolitan;  to  listen 
resignedly  while  a  Frenchman  discoursed  about  his  hunting 
and  his  limited  income,  or  while  a  Milanese  or  Genoese 
prated  about  his  business;  and  then  with  all  gentleness, 
with  a  woman's  instinctive  subtlety,  almost  by  stealth,  to 
select  among  these  men — to  hold  by  an  unconstrained  and 
loyal  welcome  those  in  whom  she  perceived  some  merit,  and 
to  bind  them  to  her  by  speaking  their  own  tongue — wisdom 
to  the  wise,  piety  to  the  pious,  practical  interests  to  the 
practical,  gaiety  to  the  young — and  thus  to  set  them  all  on 
the  path  towards  the  desired  perfection — what  a  task  for  a 
woman  !  However,  all  that  she  needed  in  the  rudimentary 
stages  of  this  education  was  to  plant  herself  securely  on  her 
own  rudimentary  gifts — in  other  words,  to  avoid  scandal 
and  tittle-tattle.  But  how  difficult  her  task  became  when 
she  had  to  deal  with  men  of  parts,  of  warm  affections,  of 
ardent  temperament !  Then,  no  doubt,  it  became  interesting, 
and  the  woman  herself  was  reaping  a  profit  which  amply 
repaid  her  trouble.  "  Ladies,"  cries  Champier,  "  if  you  must 
take  pleasure  in  hob-nobbing  with  men,  choose  at  least 
those  who  can  improve  you  and  guide  you."  There  was  no 
question  now  of  retiring  to   the  Aventine,  and  fancying 


302      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

themselves  constantly  in  mortal  peril1 ;  a  lady  had  to  hold 
herself  erect  and  tighten  the  rein  on  these  unruly  men — to 
know  the  power  of  a  word,  a  gesture,  a  flash  of  silence.2 

To  retire  to  the  Aventine !  That  would  be  criminal ! 
Speech  is  necessary  to  one  who  would  minister  to  a  mind 
diseased. 

Conversation  was  not  merely  a  pleasure.  If  they  strove 
earnestly  after  the  Beautiful,  it  was  because  the  reign  of 
beauty  is  the  most  effectual  assurance  of  the  reign  of  truth 
and  goodness.  Does  anyone  imagine  that  a  woman  can 
shut  herself  in  her  drawing-room,  and  that  all  she  peed  do 
is  to  show  herself  beautiful,  amiable,  sweet,  intelligent, 
tender  to  the  men  worthy  of  forming  her  circle  ?  No  one 
thinks  so.  Woman  rules  because  she  redeems.  To  direct 
or  actively  to  engage  in  works  of  charity,  to  send  money  to 
the  wretched,  without  looking  out  of  doors  to  see  what  men 
are  actually  suffering  or  dying — this  would  be  the  absolute 
negation  of  the  social  aim  of  conversation.  Through  con- 
versation a  woman  comes  into  living  touch  with  realities. 
She  must  show  herself  as  real  flesh  and  blood  to  the 
wretched;  she  owes  them  her  smile,  her  beauty  and  her 
grace;  aye,  it  is  her  bounden  duty  to  be  beautiful,  amiable, 
gentle,  intelligent,  tender  for  the  sake  of  those  whose  lot  is 
solaced  by  no  ray  from  heaven.  She  must  welcome  the 
poor  and  lowly,  and  though  she  may  not  be  able  to  speak 
to  them  in  Plato's  language,  she  must  none  the  less  tend 
them  with  the  supreme  medicine  of  the  Beautiful,  enter 
into  their  interests  and  their  troubles,  talk  with  them, 
shower  on  them  her  manna  of  hope  and  patience,  and — if 
she  have  it — light. 

Perhaps  we  shall  now  be  asked  how  many  women 
attained  to  these  altitudes  in  the  apostleship  of  beauty, 
and  if  we  can  cite  many  who  attempted  to  put  their 
ideas  into  practice.  Assuredly,  we  can.  In  spite  of  the 
somewhat  too  artistic  cast  into  which  social  intercourse  was 
thrown  by  platonism,  more  than  one  woman  found  in  her 
own  heart  a  commentary  which  neither  Ficino  nor  Bembo 

1  "  De  son  cheval  on  fait  une  rosse, 
Et  de  sa  femme  une  catin. " 

[Of  one's  horse  one  makes  a  jade, 
And  of  one '8  wife  a  harlot.] 

*  Heplameron,  Tale  52. 


CONVERSATION  303 

ever  knew.  In  France  we  may  mention  Anne  of  France  as 
one  who  was  thoroughly  convinced  that  conversation  was  a 
duty  to  society  at  large.  In  Italy,  ladies  of  the  highest 
rank,  like  Isabella  d'Este  and  Vittoria  Colonna,  slightly 
intoxicated  with  Beauty,  consorted  almost  exclusively  with 
princes  and  prelates  and  men  of  culture,  and  in  this  regard 
the  Renaissance  is  perhaps  rightly  accused  of  over-refine- 
ment;  yet  they  possessed  in  a  rare  degree  the  talent  of 
diffusing  around  them  an  atmosphere  of  sweetness.  At 
Urbino,  a  provincial  court  of  no  little  exclusiveness,  even 
the  stalls  of  the  handicraftsmen  were  lapped  in  a  delicious 
air;  Raphael  grew  up  like  a  natural  plant;  a  thousand 
trivial  incidents  in  the  life  of  the  place  give  us  glimpses  of 
grace  and  amiability.  The  influence  was  indirect,  but  very 
powerful. 

CORRESPONDENCE. 

It  would  seem  logical  to  consider  correspondence  as  the 
complement  of  conversation — as  talk  between  persons  at  a 
distance.  But  it  was  not  so ;  talk  it  might  be,  but  in 
writing,  and  consequently  no  one  was  very  fond  of  it ; 
people  distrusted  it  because  of  the  risks  involved.  Yet 
certain  intellectual  women  of  the  16th  century  displayed 
amazing  activity  as  letter- writers.  While  one  might  have 
supposed  them  to  be  wholly  engrossed  with  their  rouge- pots 
or  their  friends,  their  intelligence  and  vivacity  actually 
carried  them  away ;  the  pen  appeared  too  lumbering  a 
vehicle  for  their  impatient  thought.  In  the  letters  of  Julia 
Gonzaga,  for  instance,  it  is  often  evident  that  the  lady  took 
the  pen  from  her  secretary  at  the  third  or  fourth  line  and 
finished  the  letter  herself,  rapidly,  and  without  troubling 
her  head  about  grammar,  handwriting,  or  decorum.1 

To  the  student  of  handwriting,  letters  betray  many  little 
philosophic  secrets  which  are  well  worth  attention.  The 
handwritings  of  the  16th  century  (for  the  most  part 
illegible,  particularly  in  France)  are  large  and  free,  highly 
nervous  and  characteristic  of  the  writers,  released  from  the 
methodical  and  commonplace  style  of  former  days.  The 
strokes  are  fine  and  distinguished,  sometimes  a  little 
angular,  displaying  all  sorts  of  vagaries,  abbreviations  and 

1  Seventy-five  letters  of  this  princess  have  been  collected  by  M.  Amantn. 


304      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

flourishes.  What  a  "  mirror  of  the  soul "  is  the  close  and 
tangled  handwriting  of  Margaret  of  France,  or  the  gaunt, 
nervous,  firm,  aristocratic,  jerky,  disorderly  style  of  the 
duchess  of  Etampes ! x 

The  style  of  Vittoria  Colonna  is  clear  and  plain,  some- 
what masculine  in  character,  but  equally  nervous  and 
irregular,  with  a  multitude  of  abbreviations  and  splotches. 
A  mere  glance  at  the  letters  of  these  influential  women  fills 
one  with  pity.  Poor  souls  !  At  what  a  cost  of  secret 
torment,  distress,  and  agitation  did  they  mould  happiness 
and  peace  for  men  !  Looking  at  these  human  documents, 
these  nervous  handwritings,  one  asks  oneself  if  those  sages 
are  right  who  assure  us  that  to  bestow  happiness  on  others 
one  must  needs  possess  it  oneself.  Was  it  at  the  cost  of  His 
happiness,  or  at  the  cost  of  His  blood,  that  Christ  redeemed 
us  ?  I  may  be  deceived,  but  I  sometimes  fancy  that  I  see 
in  these  handwritings  as  it  were  a  drop  of  blood.  It  was 
otherwise  with  the  men:  they  were  happy.  Castiglione's 
writing  has  a  graceful,  tranquil  movement ;  his  pen  ran 
lightly  and  cursively ;  and  if  sometimes  the  strokes  seem 
laboured,  it  is  due  to  an  affectation  in  his  manner  of  joining 
the  letters.  Bembo  placidly  retains  the  old  style,  stunted, 
heavy,  and  sprawling. 

The  tone  of  the  letters  confirms  the  casual  glimpses  we 
have  already  obtained  into  the  social  relations  of  the  time. 
People  troubled  little  about  family  letters ;  these  were 
simple  and  short,  of  the  "  dutifully  affectionate "  order, 
and  composed  of  almost  stereotyped  commonplaces.  Hardly 
anything  is  referred  to  in  them  except  the  material  affairs 
of  life — business,  medicine,  health,  domestic  events  ; 2  the 
sentimental  part  is  dismissed  very  briefly — probably  because 
family  sentiments  are  necessarily  sincere. 

On  the  other  hand,  letters  written  to  friends,  which  were 
very  numerous  in  Italy,  were  charming,  tender,  and  graceful, 

1  [Mistress  of  Francis  I.] 

2  Anne  of  Laval,  for  example,  writes  to  her  sister  :  "  J'ay  entendu  que 
Monsieur  mon  fr^re  ce  vante  que  a  son  retour  j'aure  ung  petit  neveu. 
Plust  a  Dieu  qui  fust  ainsi,  d'aussi  bon  cueur  que  je  le  desire.  L'espdrance 
que  j'eu  ay  me  faict  vous  envoyer  des  poix  en  gousse,  qui  est  viande  de 
femme  grosse." 

[I  have  heard  that  my  brother  is  boasting  that  on  his  return  I  shall  have 
a  little  nephew.  God  grant  it  may  be  so,  of  as  good  heart  as  I  desire 
it.  The  hope  I  have  induces  me  to  send  you  some  peas  in  the  pod,  which 
is  a  food  for  pregnant  women. J 


CONVERSATION  305 

ending  often  most  prettily :  "  Your  little  sister  ....  who 
loves  your  lordship  as  her  own  soul — Isabella,  with  her  own 
hand." 

These  last  words,  "with  her  own  hand,"  were  not  un- 
necessary, for  a  fashionable  lady,  not  pluming  herself  on  a 
telegraphic  style,  was  obliged  on  principle  and  out  of  regard 
for  her  dignity  to  leave  as  much  as  possible  to  the  pen  of 
her  secretary.  Unhappily  the  secretary,  not  caring  to  serve 
as  a  mere  scribe,  pays  attention  to  style,  and  touches  up  his 
periods,  so  that,  failing  an  actual  autograph,  it  is  impossible 
to  be  sure  what  in  a  lady's  letter  was  really  her  own. 
Moreover,  a  lady  of  any  position  knew  that  her  letter  would 
be  shown  about,  perhaps  even  transcribed  or  published. 
Bernardo  Tasso,  Aretino  and  many  another  were  not  startled 
when  they  saw  books  made  out  of  their  letters  or  of  letters 
written  to  them;  and  the  most  interesting  letters  of  Vittoria 
Colonna  appeared  early  in  the  16th  century.  It  may  be 
said  then  that  letters  came  midway  between  conversation 
and  books.  In  a  lady's  letter  there  was  nothing  directly 
from  the  writer  but  the  signature  and  the  one  or  two  auto- 
graph words  preceding ;  in  spite  of  which,  the  letters  of  the 
marchioness  of  Pescara  and  of  Isabella  d'Este  form  very 
pleasing  and  characteristic  collections. 

After  a  visit  from  Isabella,  the  duchess  Elizabeth  of 
TJrbino  addressed  this  note  to  her:  "I  know  not  how  to 
cure  myself  of  the  regret  your  ladyship's  departure  has  left 
me  in.  Methinks  I  have  not  only  seen  a  dearly  loved  sister 
leave  me,  but  that  my  very  soul  is  gone.  I  must  needs 
write  you  ever  and  anon,  and  make  shift  to  say  on  this 
paper  what  I  would  fain  say  with  my  lips ;  if  therein  I  could 
clearly  express  my  sorrow,  I  am  very  sure  'twould  be  so 
potent  as  to  cause  your  highness  out  of  compassion  to  turn 
back.  If  I  feared  not  to  be  a  burden  to  you,  methinks  I 
should  not  hesitate  myself  to  follow  you.  Neither  thing  is 
possible ;  my  sole  resource  is  to  beg  your  highness  to  think 
of  me  as  often  as  I  bear  you  in  my  heart." 

Many  examples  of  this  delicate  and  sweet — almost  too 
sweet — graciousness  might  be  cited.  Emilia  Pia,  for  in- 
stance, one  of  the  Urbino  set,  writes  almost  as  she  speaks, 
with  great  liveliness  and  humour,  and  always  with  equal 
vivacity  whether  the  subject  be  toilet  specifics  or  philo- 
sophy.     The  men  have  the  same  charm,  and   sometimes 

u 


306      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

think  themselves  entitled  to  employ  the  same  exquisitely 
tender  formulas.  Brocardo  calls  Marietta  Myrtilla  "my 
very  sweet  and  dear  little  sister  .  .  .  my  sweet  and  match- 
less little  sister,  loved  as  my  own  soul,"  and  signs  himself: 
"  Thy  sweetest,  sweetest  Brocardo." 

The  terms  in  which  a  well-bred  man  could,  indeed  was 
expected  to,  address  a  fashionable  lady,  may  be  seen  from  a 
letter  from  Castiglione,  then  ambassador  in  Spain,  to  Vit- 
toria  Colon  n  a. 

"  I  have  felt,"  he  says,  "  so  much  joy  in  the  victories  of 
the  marquis  that  at  first  I  would  not  write  a  letter — a  letter 
is  so  vulgar  a  thing !  One  writes  letters  about  events  of  no 
importance.  I  had  thought  of  fireworks,  fe'tes,  concerts, 
songs,  and  other  vigorous  demonstrations,  but  reflection 
has  shown  me  that  these  are  inferior  to  the  concert  of 
my  own  affections;  and  so  I  am  come  back  to  the  idea 
of  a  letter,  convinced  that  my  marchioness  will  be  able 
to  see  what  I  have  in  my  soul,  even  though  my  words  fail 
to  express  it."  And  he  dilates  on  this  talent  of  the  divine 
marchioness  for  penetrating  hearts,  and  for  reading  there 
what  the  lips  fail  to  utter,  and  then  congratulates  her  on 
the  delight  which  she  cannot  but  feel.  "  And  as  to  my  duty 
towards  your  highness,  seek,  I  beseech  you,  the  testimony  of 
your  own  heart,  and  give  it  credence,  for  I  am  sure  your 
heart  will  not  lie  to  you  on  what  not  only  yourself,  but  the 
whole  world,  sees  shining  through  my  soul,  as  through  the 
purest  crystal.  And  thus  I  remain,  kissing  your  hands  and 
numbly  commending  myself  to  your  good  favour.  Madrid 
March  21." 

Two  years  afterward  he  wrote  in  regard  to  the  death  of 
her  husband  :  "  Calamity  has  fallen  upon  you  like  a  deluge. 
I  durst  not  write  to  your  highness  at  first,  for  I  deemed 
you  had  died  with  the  marquis;  to-day  in  all  verity  and 
admiration  I  hold  that  the  marquis  still  liveth  in  you." 

Do  we  need  other  specimens  of  these  gracious  and  some- 
what ultra-refined  letters  ?  Here  is  a  letter  from  Castiglione 
to  the  famous  Marchesa  Hippolyta  Florimonda  Scaldasole  : 
"  Most  excellent  lady,  if  your  ladyship  were  as  pleased  to 
know  you  dwell  eternally  in  my  memory,  as  'twould  be 
infinitely  delightful  for  me  to  dwell  in  yours,  I  should  be 
keenly  desirous  of  giving  you  proof  of  it  in  this  letter,  since 
for  the  moment  I  can  do  it  in  no  other  way.     But  as  your 


CONVERSATION  307 

ladyship  has  shown  the  world,  along  with  your  many  other 
wondrous  gifts,  that  you  are  a  woman  valiant  in  fight,  and 
not  only  beautiful,  but  warlike  also  like  Hippolyta  of  old, 
I  fear  me  lest  you  be  somewhat  puffed  up  with  pride,  and 
tiomewhat  forgetful  of  your  servitors — and  I  would  not 
have  it  so.  Therefore  have  I  made  bold  to  write  to 
you,  and  to  pray  Messer  Camillo  Ghilino,  my  very  dear 
friend,  to  speak  on  my  behoof,  and  to  tell  you  that  in 
Spain,  as  at  Milan  and  at  Pavia,  I  am  your  man ;  and  that, 
when  I  had  come  to  Pavia,  whither  the  army  led  me,  those 
walls,  those  ramparts,  those  towers,  that  artillery,  all  those 
things  spoke  to  me  of  your  highness,  knowing  that  behind 
them  you  were  all  aglow  with  the  thought  of  combatting  so 
great  a  prince  as  the  King  of  France.  You  have  gotten  the 
victory,  and  now  and  henceforth  no  one  will  be  so  daring- 
hardy,  I  trow,  as  to  fight  with  you.  Deign  to  believe  him, 
lady,  as  myself;  and  I  beseech  you,  if  you  be  not  of  all  ladies 
the  least  loving,  bid  me  to  be  at  Milan  and  where  you  are. 
Messer  Camillo  will  be  able  to  tell  iiow  different  it  is  to  be 
in  such  sweet  company  as  your  ladyship's  and  to  be  in 
Spain.  I  kiss  your  hands,  and  ever  commend  myself  to 
you,  deeply  desiring  to  know  that  this  benedictus  fructus 
be  reaped  by  a  husbandman  worthy  of  it.  Toledo,  June  21, 
1525." 

After  all,  there  was  a  necessary  resemblance  between  a 
letter  and  a  conversation.  In  Italy,  the  note  of  tenderness 
is  always  dominant,  flattering  and  caressing  even  when  gay. 
Some  of  Bibbiena's  letters  are  full  of  deep  feeling,  and  yet  it 
is  impossible  to  mention  a  more  jovial  man :  his  fun  bubbled 
over  at  the  slightest  provocation.  Isabella  d'Este  once 
scolded  him  for  no  longer  visiting  Mantua.  "  How,"  retorts 
he  with  affected  indignation — "  how  have  they  managed  to 
drop  into  those  dainty  little  ears  so  many  gross  accusations 
against  me  ?  .  .  .  Here  I  see  your  daughter,  who  appears  to 
me  the  very  image  of  that  serene  highness  her  mother. 
Tell  me  again  I  am  a  lecher,  and  by  God  it  shall  be  true  as 
Gospel !  Would  you  have  me  swear  otherwise  ?  .  .  .  Most 
devoutly  do  I  kiss  your  hands,  and  to  my  dear  lady  Alda  I 
commend  myself  a  thousand  times."  The  amiable  prelate 
was  at  that  time  assiduously  courting  Signorina  Alda 
Boiarda,  maid  of  honour  to  the  marchioness ;  and,  as  usual, 
the  mistress  was  not  altogether  pleased. 


308       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Another  charming  custom  in  Italy  was  for  a  lady  to  recall 
herself  to  the  recollection  of  her  friends  by  means  of  a  little 
present.  Vittoria  Colonna  sent  her  portrait  to  Bembo, 
accompanied  by  a  few  verses  from  her  own  hand :  "  Verses 
pure  and  dainty ! "  cries  Bembo,  "  that  touch  the  heart  far 
more  than  a  mere  letter."  On  another  occasion  she  charged 
one  of  her  friends,  who  was  going  to  Mantua,  to  convey  to 
the  marquis  "a  friendly  and  s}7mpathetic "  greeting,  with 
some  small  token  of  her  regard.  The  friend  thought  he  was 
doing  right  in  offering  a  basket  of  roses,  and  the  marquis 
lost  no  time  in  sending  his  respectful  thanks  direct  to  the 
fair  donor.  And  then  Vittoria  formally  apologised  in  very 
affectionate  terms  that  her  messenger  had  "  honoured  him  so 
little  "  as  to  offer  so  modest  a  souvenir. 

Truth  to  tell,  Frenchwomen  showed  much  less  feminine 
grace  in  this  matter,  which  explains  our  dwelling  on  the 
charm  of  their  Italian  neighbours.  The  most  Italianised  of 
them  could  not  attain  this  seductive  charm.  In  all  the 
correspondence  of  Margaret  of  France  you  will  not  find  one 
letter  recalling  those  we  have  just  quoted  almost  haphazard. 
Margaret  did  indeed  sedulously  strive  to  attain  that  charm, 
as  we  cannot  but  perceive,  but  her  languishings  resulted  in 
little  else  than  prolixity.  It  will  not  do  to  strain  one's 
talent. 

Rene'e  of  France,  though  she  became  duchess  of  Ferrara, 
never  acquired  the  Italian  trick ;  she  continued  to  write  with 
French  brevity.  .  Diana  of  Poitiers  and  the  duchess  of 
Etampes  amaze  us  by  the  almost  arid  precision  of  their 
style;  they  might  have  given  points  to  the  most  dry-as-dust 
of  attorneys  ;  there  is  never  a  sign  of  a  gust  of  passion  or  of 
love's  finesse.  The  rising  generation  of  Henri  II/s  time 
came  nearer  the  attainment  of  a  pleasant  style.  The  king's 
two  daughters,  Madeline  and  Margaret,  wrote  excellent 
hands — easy,  graceful,  even,  with  a  uniform  slope,  the  letters 
broad  and  clear,  the  whole  style  very  distinguished ;  and 
they  employed  pleasant  and  engaging  forms,  phrases  of 
genuine  affection,  especially  in  their  family  correspondence.1 

1  Here  are  some  samples  of  these  private  letters  : 

"Monsigneur,  tant  et  si  tres  humblement  que  je  puis  a  vostre  bonne  grace 
me  recommende. 

Monsigneur,  je  vous  suplie  tres  humblement  croire  que  la  creance  que 
rc-mais  a  ce  porteur  n'est  que  la  plus  grande  obaissence  que  james  tres 


CONVERSATION  309 

But  they  too  were  at  their  best  in  short  notes,  and  their 
most  pleasing  letters  are  always  very  brief.  The  higher 
charm  remained  the  secret  of  Italy. 

humble  fille  ne  servente  vous  saroit  porter  et  coume  la  plus  obligee  de  ce 
monde. 

Monsigneur,  prie  Dieu  qui  vous  dont  tres  bonne  et  tres  longue  vie. 

Voutre  tres  humble  et  tres  obaissente  fille, 
Magdalene. 
Address:  An  Roy  mon  souverain  seigneur." 

[My  lord,  as  truly  and  as  humbly  as  I  can  I  commend  myself  to  your  good 
favour. 

My  lord,  I  beg  you  very  humbly  to  believe  that  the  letter  of  credit  I 
confide  to  this  carrier  is  only  the  greatest  obedience  that  ever  humblest 
maid  and  servant  could  bear  to  you,  and  like  the  most  dutiful  in  the  world. 
My  lord,  I  pray  God  to  give  you  a  very  good  and  very  long  life. 

Your  very  humble  and  very  obedient  daughter, 
Magdalene.] 

"  Ma  cousine,  je  n'ay  point  voullu  que  ce  porteur  soit  passe-  par  Chantilli 
sans  vous  porter  de  mes  laitres  ;  je  vous  en  usses  plutost  envoie,  mes  les 
piteulses  nouvelles  qu'avons  repsues  de  Hedin  m'an  onst  engarde,  car  je 
n'aime  poinct  a  mander  de  mauvesses  nouvelles,  et  en  cete  perte  j'ay  este' 
tres  esse  d'entendre  que  Monsieur  le  conte  de  Villars  vostre  frere  est 
seulement  prisonnir  {sic)  avecq  tant  d'onneur  que  je  suis  sure  que  vos  prieres 
luy  onst  beaucoup  servi.  Vous  feres  tant  pour  moy,  ma  cousine,  de  croire 
que  tout  ce  qui  vous  touchera  que  je  ceray  mervelleucement  esse  qu'il  soint 
anci  hureulx  comme  vous  le  desires  et  moy  anci  ce  que  je  suplie  de  bien  bon 
cueur  Dieu  et  de  vous  donner  bonne  vie  et  longue  et  a  moy  l'eur  de  vostre 
bonne  grasse  a  laquelle  de  bien  bon  cueur  me  recommande. 

Vostre  melieure  cousine  et  amie, 
Marguerite  de  France. 

A  ma  cousine  Madame  la  connestable  [ducjesse  de  Montmorency." 

[My  cousin,  I  would  not  let  this  carrier  pass  through  Chantilly  without 
taking  some  letters  from  me  for  you.  I  should  have  written  sooner,  but 
the  dreadful  news  we  have  received  from  Hedin  has  prevented  me,  for  I  do 
not  care  to  send  bad  news,  and  in  this  loss  I  was  very  glad  to  hear  that  the 
count  of  Villars  your  brother  is  only  a  prisoner,  with  so  much  honour  that 
I  am  sure  your  prayers  have  much  profited  him.  You  will  do  so  much  for 
me,  my  cousin,  as  to  believe  that,  in  all  that  touches  you,  I  shall  be  wonder- 
fully glad  if  all  falls  out  as  lucky  as  you  desire,  and  myself  too,  and  I  pray 
God  so  with  all  my  heart,  both  to  give  you  a  good  and  long  life,  and  me  the 
bliss  of  your  good  favour,  to  which  with  all  my  heart  I  commend  myself. 

Your  best  cousin  and  friend, 
Margaret  of  France.] 

"  Mon  pere,  je  ne  voulu  leser  aler  se  pourteur  sans  vous  faire  savoir  de 
mes  nouvelles,  lequeles  sont  bonnes,  pour  se  que  je  aeudire  souvan  des 
vostres  qai  me  pabise(?)  bien,  car  s'et  au  proufit  du  roy  et  a  vostre  ouneur" 
Je  prie  Dieu  vous  i  vouloyr  tenir;  je  ne  veus  oblier  a  vous  faire  mes 
reconmandasions  bien  fort  voustre  bonne  grase. 

Vostre  bonne  fille, 
Marguerite. 
A  Monsieur  le  grant  maistre." 


310       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

[My  father,  I  would  not  allow  this  carrier  to  go  without  letting  you  have 
news  of  me,  which  are  good,  because  I  have  often  had  news  of  you  which 
please  me,  for  'tis  to  the  profit  of  the  king  and  your  honour.  I  pray  that 
God  will  keep  you  in  the  same ;  I  do  not  forget  to  commend  myself  very 
earnestly  to  your  good  favour. 

Your  good  daughter, 
Margaret.  ] 

"Mon  pere,  j'ay  este"  tres  esse  d'entendre  par  vostre  cegretere  presant 
porteur  du  bon  partement  du  Roy  et  du  vostre  et  aucy  que  toutes  les  af aires 
continuent  de  mieulx  en  mieulx  ;  cant  a  cele  conpagnie,  la  Royne  et  monsieur 
ce  portent  tres  bien,  aucy  faict  tout  le  reste.  Nous  ne  fesons  faute  de  prier 
bien  Dieu  tout  les  jours  pour  le  Roy ;  apres  luy,  mon  pere,  je  vous  puis 
assurer  que  vous  estes  le  prumier  (sic)  en  mes  auraisons.  Je  vous  prire  (sic), 
mon  pere,  presanter  mes  tres  humbles  recommandasions  au  Roy  et  me  tenir 
en  sa  bonne  grasse  et  an  la  vostre.  A  laquelle  de  bien  bon  ceur  me  recom- 
mande,  et  prie  Dieu  vous  donner  bonne  vie  et  longue. 

Vostre  milieure  figle  et  cousiae, 

Marguerite  de  France. — A  mon  pere,  Monsieur  le  connestable." 

[My  father,  I  was  very  glad  to  hear  by  your  secretary  the  present  bearer  of 
the  good  departure  of  the  king  and  yourself,  and  also  that  affairs  are  going 
better  and  better:  as  to  this  company,  the  queen  and  monsieur  (the  king's 
brother)  are  very  well,  as  are  all  the  rest.  We  do  not  neglect  to  pray  God 
every  day  for  the  king  :  after  him,  my  father,  I  can  assure  you  that  you  are 
the  first  in  my  prayers.  I  beg  you,  my  father,  to  present  my  very  humble 
greetings  to  the  king  and  to  keep  me  in  his  good  favour  and  in  yours.  To 
which  with  much  love  I  commend  myself,  praying  God  to  give  you  good 
and  long  lifo. 

Your  best  daughter  and  cousin, 
Margaret  of  France.] 


BOOK  III.     THE  INFLUENCE  OF  WOMEN 

CHAPTER  I 

POLITICAL    INFLUENCE 

The  foregoing  pages  will  have  enabled  the  reader  to  see 
how  little  the  platonist  women  sought  to  exert  a  direct 
influence  in  affairs.  They  aimed  rather  at  moral  and  social 
influence.  In  no  sense  were  they  women  of  action,  believing 
likely  enough  that  the  course  of  events  would  become 
modified  naturally  when  men  had  changed.  Conforming 
to  the  aphorism,  "Woman  is  supreme  only  as  woman," 
they  devoted  themselves  to  the  skilful  development  of  the 
sources  of  their  superiority,  leaving  their  inferiorities  care- 
fully in  the  shade.  They  avoided  all  masculine  modes — 
the  rustic  sort  of  sexless  unattractive  women,  most  at  home 
in  the  stables,  strong-minded  creatures  who  looked  for  a 
love  they  never  inspired;  they  studiously  left  to  men  the 
keen-edged  activities  of  life — law,  politics,  military  service, 
all  the  needful  barriers  against  social  inundation.  Louise 
of  Savoy  was  almost  the  only  woman  who  so  far  cherished 
the  old  ideas  as  to  regret  that  she  was  a  woman ;  who  loved 
to  play  a  part  in  politics,  and  whose  intelligence  and  energy 
won  praise  in  terms  that  recalled  the  great  women  of  the 
past,  notably  Blanche  of  Castile.  She  was  a  realist  of  the 
old  type,  who  had  lovers  as  a  matter  of  course,  but  gave 
scant  thought  to  winning  hearts :  thus  wholly  differing 
from  the  new  order  of  women.  And  yet,  by  a  singular 
chance  in  the  working  of  the  old  laws  of  monarchical 
succession,  the  world  has  perhaps  never  seen  more  women 

311 


312      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

called  to  fill  the  places  of  men  in  the  sphere  of  statecraft. 
After  all,  monarchy  is  not  a  principle  of  pure  reason :  it  is 
incapable  of  mathematical  demonstration :  it  is  a  principle 
springing  wholly  from  sentiment.  Its  advantage  lies  in 
this — that  in  a  world  of  tragic  pettiness  it  gives  a  nation 
something  to  love. 

Many  women  played  important  parts  in  these  masculine 
struggles,  among  which  they  were  thrown  in  their  own 
despite.  The  period  was  one  of  constant  turmoil,  and  they 
had  no  opportunity  of  enjoying  a  life  of  quiet  secluded 
happiness. 

Among  them  was  that  unhappy  mother,  Isabella  of 
Aragon,  who  was  persecuted  by  Ludovico  il  Moro,  the 
uncle,  and,  as  some  said,  the  assassin  of  her  husband,  and 
held  captive  in  France  by  Louis  XII. — a  luckless,  warm- 
hearted, valiant  figure  who,  in  the  effort  to  win  Milan  back 
for  her  son,  maintained  a  desperate  struggle  with  the  whole 
of  Europe. 

Then  too  there  was  Joan  of  Aragon,  that  beautiful 
sunny-haired  woman,  with  features  of  rare  distinction  and 
sweetness,  in  her  day  the  idol  of  Nifo  and  the  prototype  of 
beauty.  She  had  married  Ascanio  Colonna,  a  soldier  of 
fortune  who  had  brought  his  affairs  to  a  desperate  pass. 
Poor  woman !  On  every  side  she  saw  blank  desolation. 
She  had  just  lost  her  eldest  son  by  a  sudden  death  when 
creditors  began  to  harass  her  and  drive  her  second  son  to 
ruin ;  and  from  the  magnificent  windows  of  the  Colonna 
palace,  where  she  was  imprisoned  by  order  of  Pope  Paul  IV., 
she  saw  the  pontifical  troops  marching  by  on  the  way  to 
seize  her  castles.  She  could  endure  it  no  longer.  One 
morning  she  disappeared,  no  one  knows  how,  but  probably 
in  disguise :  at  one  of  the  gates  of  Rome  she  found  a  horse 
ready  saddled,  and  she  performed  the  astonishing  feat  of 
riding  to  Naples  without  drawing  rein.  At  Naples  she 
became  the  centre  of  a  cruel  strife :  her  husband  had  her 
son  arrested,  and  the  son  denounced  the  father.  Ascanio 
fell,  struck  by  an  unknown  dagger.  And  when  his  charm- 
ing wife,  whose  golden  hair  had  never  a  fleck  of  grey,  came 
in  her  turn  to  die,  they  must  bury  her  with  her  husband, 
and  could  find  for  the  shuddering  tomb  no  inscription  but 
the  touching  words:  "A  great-hearted  woman,  a  very 
loving  wife." 


POLITICAL  INFLUENCE  313 

In  a  higher  sphere  even  Margaret  of  Austria  was  but  a 
genuine  woman,  an  admirable  mother  who  never  had  any 
children.  Compelled  by  family  duty  to  rule  the  Nether- 
lands during  the  long  minority  of  her  nephew  Charles  the 
Fifth,  through  all  those  years  of  toil  and  difficulty  she  set 
but  one  aim  before  her,  the  preservation  of  peace.  She  was 
good,  benevolent,  intelligent,  but  not  happy:  "Twice 
married  and  yet  a  maid,"1  as  she  said,  then  the  widow  of 
the  handsome  Philibert  of  Savoy,  she  would  have  preferred 
the  '  tiniest  grain '  that  satisfied  her  heart's  craving  to  the 
dignities  that  were  poisoning  her  life;  and  she  made  no 
secret  of  it.  On  her  tomb  she  ordered  to  be  set  this  striking 
emblem  of  disillusionment :  '  Fortune,  Infortune!'2 

And  the  great  Anne  of  France,  'the  lady  of  Beaujeu,' 
condemned  to  an  attitude  of  'knitted  brows'  and  drawn 
sword  as  a  means  of  reassuring  her  good  subjects  and 
keeping  the  bad  in  awe,  that  haughty,  ambitious,  close- 
fisted,  masculine  woman,  as  she  was  called  by  those  whom 
she  had  reduced  to  a  proper  sense  of  the  duty  of  prompt 
obedience — no  one  was  in  reality  less  like  the  cold  statue 
she  appeared  in  official  life.  It  was  enough  to  watch  her 
features  in  the  hour  of  strife,  and  of  triumph  even ;  they 
twitched  and  quivered,  and  were  only  controlled  by  a 
visible  effort.8  A  modest,  it  might  almost  be  said  a  humble 
woman,  she  was  constantly  a  prey  to  self-distrust,  never 
acting  without  advice,  almost  heart-broken  at  her  victories, 
for  her  one  dream  was  of  quenching  animosities  ;  caring  for 
nothing  but  peace,  justice,  and  a  well-ordered  State,  and 
carrying  her  loathing  of  extreme  ideas  to  the  point  of 
appearing  obtuse. 

When  her  brother  was  able  to  assume  the  government  she 
disappeared  from  the  scene,  quietly,  with  the  least  possible 
display,  happy  to  seek  retirement  at  her  splendid  place  at 
Moulins,  amid  all  she  held  dear.  She  had  conceived  so  little 
taste  for  political  life  that  she  gave  her  daughter  a  forcible 
recommendation  to  avoid  its  mazes  :  "  Mind  your  own  busi- 

1  [She  came  near  perishing  by  shipwreck  on  her  way  to  join  her  young 
husband,  the  Infant  of  Spain,  and  composed  her  epitaph  : 
Ci-glt  M  argot,  la  gente  demoiselle, 
Qu'eut  deux  maris,  et  si  mourut  pucelle.] 

'She  died  in  1530,  barely  fifty  years  old. 

*  Her  portrait  is  in  the  Louvre. 


314       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

ness,"  she  said ;  in  other  words,  keep  strictly  to  your  own 
part,  and  if  duty  demands  a  temporary  withdrawal,  resume 
it  as  quickly  as  possible,  and  be  egoistic  enough  to  make 
the  winning  of  love  your  sole  quest. 

Such  was  the  attitude  towards  civil  emancipation  and 
the  careers  proper  to  men  that  was  taken  up  by  women  of 
the  highest  distinction,  whom  glory  might  well  have  led  off 
in  the  wrong  direction.  La  Rochefoucauld  could  hardly 
have  had  them  in  mind  when  he  enunciated  the  unsound 
maxim :  "  There  is  no  renouncing  ambition  for  love."  To 
renounce  ambition  was  all  that  these  women  desired,  or 
rather  their  ambition  was  love  itself;  when  the  chances  of 
life  forced  them  upon  the  stage,  their  one  desire  was  for  a 
man  to  lean  upon.  Diplomatists,  of  necessity  psychological 
folk,  were  under  no  delusion  in  the  matter ;  when  they  had 
dealings  with  a  princess,  forthwith  we  see  them  on  the  look- 
out for  the  man  or  men  behind.  "  Giacomo  Feo  appears  to 
me  the  pivot  of  the  State,"  wrote  Prudhomme,  ambassador 
at  the  court  of  Catherine  Sforza;  the  poor  man  had  just 
made  the  discovery  that  Feo's  will  was  law.  The  great 
trouble  of  Anne  of  France  was  that  she  could  find  no 
support  in  her  husband,  a  man  of  complete  integrity  and 
excellent  disposition,  but  unstable  as  water. 

On  the  other  hand,  among  women  of  but  average  intel- 
ligence, there  were  busybodies  with  a  lust  for  notoriety, 
parade,  admiration,  always  ready  to  interfere  in  anything 
and  everything,  to  the  utter  despair  of  serious  workers.  Of 
these  Renee  of  France,  duchess  of  Ferrara,  may  serve  as  an 
example.  Born  a  daughter  of  France,  she  considered  that 
her  insignificant  husband  had  been  too  highly  honoured  in 
wedding  her,  denied  him  her  bed,  lived  in  her  own  circle, 
and  entered  into  diplomatic  relations  on  her  own  account. 
Not  that  she  had  any  definite  political  aims:  her  method 
was  the  simple  one  of  pulling  in  opposite  directions  to  her 
husband,  which  at  a  distance  gives  her  conduct  a  look  of 
inconsistency.  Did  she  hold  with  Rome,  or  Geneva  ?  She 
would  receive  Ignatius  Loyola  in  the  morning,  Calvin  in 
the  afternoon,  and  anyone  else  when  the  fancy  took  her. 
To  her  France  was  all  in  all ;  but  the  French  government 
had  only  to  request  someone  to  cross  the  frontier  for  her  to 
receive  the  exile  with  open  arms.  In  somewhat  limping 
verse  Marot  acknowledged  her  grant  of  a  pension  (diminu- 


POLITICAL  INFLUENCE  315 

tive,  it  is  true)  which  entailed  upon  him  no  duties  but  those 
of  a  lover : 

Mes  amis,  j'ai  change"  ma  dame  ; 

Une  autre  a  dessus  moi  puissance, 

Nee  deux  fois,  de  nom  et  d'ame.1 

Re-born  indeed  both  were,  and  it  may  even  be  said  that 
their  life  was  a  constant  succession  of  re-incarnations,  in 
creeds  and  amours  of  hues  as  shifting  as  the  chameleon's; 
for  Marot  notoriously  proved  faithful  to  nothing  but  his 
pensions.  Neither  of  them  had  any  part  or  lot  in  platonism. 
Marot  chose  to  become  its  recognised  flouter;  Rene'e  was 
merely  a  woman  of  a  restless  spirit,  without  any  solid  abilities. 
In  public  ceremonies  she  appeared  at  her  husband's  side; 
within  their  own  doors  she  was  perpetually  at  odds  with 
him :  an  exasperating  woman  indeed,  dead  to  the  finer 
feelings.  The  duke  of  Ferrara  was  not  master  in  his  own 
duchy.  One  day  he  banished  one  of  the  most  obnoxious 
of  his  wife's  ladies,  a  Madame  de  Soubise:  the  lady  in- 
stantly proceeded  to  arrange  an  interview  between  the 
duchess  and  the  King  of  France,  and  it  was  with  the 
utmost  difficulty  that  this  menacing  combination  was 
prevented  from  becoming  an  accomplished  fact. 

The  duchess  had  a  lover,  by  no  means  of  the  platonic 
order,  in  the  son-in-law  of  this  Madame  de  Soubise.  He 
was  a  M.  de  Pons,  a  scion  of  a  family  which  enjoyed  the 
singular  privilege  of  rendering  services  of  this  nature  to 
royal  ladies.  Again  the  duke  of  Ferrara  had  much  ado  to 
stifle  scandal  in  this  direction.  Having  recourse  to  the 
time-honoured  method,  he  sent  M.  de  Pons  on  a  mission  to 
France,  with  sufficiently  general  instructions,  which  found  a 
natural  reflection  in  the  vagueness  of  the  official  despatches. 
But  the  private  letters  of  the  duchess  to  the  ambassador 
were  explicit  enough  in  all  conscience.  She  tells  him,  for 
instance,  that  she  is  giving  the  hospitality  of  her  bed  to 
the  little  poodle  he  had  left  behind  at  Ferrara,  fondling  it 
and  kissing  it,  "  since,"  she  adds,  "  I  have  no  one  else 
here  now."  Now,  mark  the  complexity  of  this  feminine 
diplomacy !     Attached  to  the  service  of  our  gay  ambassador 

1  Friends,  know  that  I  have  changed  my  dame  ; 
Another  holds  me  at  her  will, 
In  soul  Renee,  Renee  her  name. 
(Rende  =  re-born  :  the  pun  cannot  be  translated.) 


316      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

was  a  spy  in  the  duchess's  pay.  But  this  was  matched  by 
the  fact  that  her  own  letters  were  intercepted  and  read  in 
the  "  dark  closet"  of  Ferrara,  with  the  result  that  the  duke 
lost  whatever  remnant  of  doubt  he  may  perchance  have 
nourished,  but  had  the  charming  consolation  of  locking  up 
in  his  archives  the  journal  in  which  she  set  down  her 
doings  and  secret  thoughts  for  the  sole  benefit,  as  she 
imagined,  of  her  absent  lover.  The  inevitable  outcome 
of  this  game  of  cross  purposes  was  the  impossibility  of 
foreseeing  when  the  mission  of  M.  de  Pons  would  be 
concluded.  But  it  would  argue  great  simplicity  not  to 
imagine  that  the  duchess  also  had  her  "  dark  closet " ;  and 
in  fact,  she  had  arranged  for  the  interception  and  perusal  of 
letters  addressed  to  the  lucky  Pons  by  one  of  her  own  ladies 
of  honour,  letters  which,  like  hers,  embodied  a  private  diary, 
and  were  as  ardent  as  her  own.  It  remains  only  to  add 
that  Pons  had  left  at  Ferrara  a  lawful  wife  (the  inspiration 
of  Giraldi's  muse)  who  loved  him  with  equal  warmth  and 
devotion,  and  bore  him  beautiful  children.  But  all  things 
come  to  an  end,  even  diplomacy  when  there  are  more 
reasons  for  concluding  negotiations  than  for  commencing 
them.  So  it  came  about  that  M.  de  Pons  returned,  and  the 
duke  philosophically  shut  his  eyes  and  stopped  his  ears 
until  the  day  when  he  took  the  liberty  of  turning  the  key 
on  the  daughter  of  France  whom  he  had  been  so  much 
honoured  in  espousing. 

The  duchess  of  Ferrara  belonged  to  a  school  which  was 
unhappily  of  large  extent,  and  was  in  great  measure  the 
cause  of  the  ruin  of  feminism  :  the  school  namely  of  women 
who  were  somewhat  intoxicated  with  their  power,  and  who 
forced  their  way  by  hook  or  crook  into  politics  and  life. 
In  France  more  than  one  woman  of  this  sort  might  be  cited 
from  the  reign  of  Henri  II. 

Serious  women,  however,  very  clearly  saw  that  if  they 
were  to  avoid  a  fall  they  must  take  only  an  indirect  part  in 
affairs.  When  the  great  sculptor  Sansovino  appeared  on 
the  point  of  sinking  under  a  moral  crisis,  it  seemed  quite 
natural  that  Aretino  should  appeal  to  his  young  wife  to 
come  to  his  aid !  There  you  have  the  woman's  role !  Vit- 
toria  Colonna,  likewise,  restrained  her  husband  in  the  flush 
of  an  intoxicating  and  perhaps  perilous  triumph,  by  a  letter 
which  has  justly  remained  celebrated:  "Not  by  the  great- 


POLITICAL  INFLUENCE  317 

ness  of  your  domains  or  titles,  but  by  your  virtue,  will  you 
win  the  honour  which  your  descendants  may  make  their 
boast.  For  my  part  I  have  no  desire  to  be  the  wife  of  a 
king;  I  am  the  wife  of  the  great  captain  who  has  van- 
quished all  kings,  not  by  his  valour  merely,  but  by  his 
magnanimity." 

Such  was  the  language  of  a  philosophical  woman,  accus- 
tomed to  take  lofty  views  of  things,  and  to  live  in  the 
atmosphere  of  the  Beautiful,  that  is  to  say,  a  life  of  mingled 
serenity  and  strength.  Her  reserve  of  energy,  lying  hid 
under  a  wealth  of  kindliness,  could  only  show  itself  in 
times  of  difficulty:  "The  tongue  is  feminine,  the  arm  is 
masculine,"  said  an  old  Italian  proverb.1  The  tongue  directs 
the  arm ;  there  are  circumstances  in  which  the  tongue  may 
sustain  the  arm,  but  that  is  not  its  chief  duty. 

Woman's  part,  it  is  admitted,  is  to  act  as  a  moderating 
influence  in  joy  or  grief.  We  shall  therefore  not  dwell  upon 
that  point,  but  confine  ourselves  to  answering  a  question  of 
some  delicacy.  Women  have  been  reproached  with  mis- 
using their  powers,  and  with  holding  men  too  much  under 
their  thumb. 

To  loathe  war,  to  advocate  perpetual  peace,  conciliation, 
hatred  of  everything  resembling  an  appeal  to  force,  is 
admirable  enough ;  but  this  advocacy  itself  has  its  limits. 
Is  not  war  also  a  salutary  thing  ?  Does  it  not  brace  up 
nations  sunk  in  the  torpor  of  bourgeois  materialism  ?  War 
has  a  nobleness  and  beauty  of  its  own.  And  indeed,  are 
we  to  degrade  men  into  carpet  knights,  jousting  in  cap 
and  feather  before  a  court  deliciously  feminine  ?  Horses, 
standards,  heraldic  devices,  the  sheen  of  armour,  the  clash 
of  weapons,  the  din  of  clarions  and  trumpets,  of  flutes  and 
hunting-horns  and  all  the  instruments  that  stir  the  blood, — 
inspiriting  as  all  these  are  supposed  to  be,  and  well  as  they 
may  symbolise  courage,  are  they  sufficient  to  preserve  the 
masculine  virtues  ?  Love  is  often  enervating.  Where  will 
the  army  be,2  what  will  become  of  the  country,  if  women 

1 "  I  fatti  sono  maschi,  le  parole  femine." 
2  Clement  Marot  writes  : 

Adieu  le  bal,  adieu  la  dance  ! ; 

Adieu  mesure,  adieu  cadence, 

Tanbourins,  aulboys,  violons, 

Puisqu'a  la  guerre  nous  allons  .  .  . 


318      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

carry  us  up  with  them  into  the  clouds  ?  Mantegna  replies 
by  showing  us  Samson  and  Delilah,1  Botticelli  with  his 
picture  of  the  cupids  stripping  Mars  of  his  armour  as  he 
lies  sleeping  by  Venus'  side.2 

But  we  have  already  given  the  true  answer. 

Certainly  woman's  place  is  not  in  the  camp.  The  virago 
has  no  vogue:  men  do  not  fight  women  nor  take  them 
prisoners.  Women  do  in  truth  loathe  war.  But  when  the 
war  is  noble  they  become  its  advocates.  War  is  a  noble 
thing  when  it  is  waged  in  self-defence,  when  honour  and 
life  and  liberty  are  at  stake.  Then,  be  sure,  women  are  not 
lagging  in  the  rear.  Beatrice  d'Este  with  a  stout  heart 
dragged  Ludovico  il  Moro  to  the  camp  facing  the  French ; 
and  there,  showing  him  an  army  quaking  for  all  its  cheers 
at  that  solemn  hour  the  eve  of  battle,  she  set  the  feeble 
heart  of  her  husband  beating  in  time  with  her  own.  In 
November  1502  the  ladies  of  Urbmo  besieged  the  ducal 
palace  with  offers  of  their  jewels  for  the  purpose  of  repelling 
Caesar  Borgia.  At  Sienna,  the  women,  led  by  ladies  of  the 
highest  rank,  set  to  work  to  carry  baskets  of  earth  upon 
their  heads,  and,  what  is  still  more  extraordinary,  they 
agreed  to  perform  this  service  systematically  under  the 
orders  of  three  lady  captains  recognisable  by  their  satin 
petticoats.  One  young  girl  pushed  her  enthusiasm  to  such 
a  length  as  to  disguise  herself  in  a  soldier's  uniform  in  order 

Adieu  les  regards  gracieux, 
Messagers  des  coeurs  soucieux ; 
Adieu  les  profondes  pens^es, 
Satisfaictes  ou  offensees ; 
Adieu  les  armonieux  sons 
De  rondeaulx,  dixains  et  chansons  .  •  , 
Adieu  la  lettre,  adieu  le  page  ! 
(To  the  court  ladies. ) 

[Farewell  to  dance,  farewell  to  ball, 

And  cadenced  measures,  farewell  all ! 

Fiddles,  hautboys,  tambourines, 

For  we  go  to  warlike  scenes. 

Sweet  looks  from  ladies'  eyes,  that  tell 

How  much  they  love  us,  fare  ye  well ! 

Farewell  to  meditation  deep, 

That  gives  us  joy  or  mars  our  sleep ; 

Farewell  to  all  harmonious  strains 

Of  ballads,  rondeaux,  and  dizains  ; 

Letters  and  pages,  all  farewell !] 

1  National  Gallery.  « Ibid. 


POLITICAL  INFLUENCE  319 

to  pass  the  night  on  the  ramparts.  Monluc  ■  himself,  that 
hardened  old  warrior,  waxed  enthusiastic  in  praise  of  such 
notable  courage,  and  promised  eternal  glory  to  these  fair 
ladies.  And  was  not  Anne  of  France  familiar  with  the 
camp?  Have  we  not  told  the  story  of  that  Franchise 
d'Amboise  who  raised  a  troop  to  repel  a  band  of  brigands  ! 

But  to  fire  a  woman's  heart  a  just  cause  is  needed,  other- 
wise she  execrates  war.  Clever  people  may  talk  as  they 
please, — praise  the  Amazons  of  Georgia,  the  ancient  Ligurian 
women  who  tilled  their  fields,  or  recall  the  visions  of  Plato 
in  the  fifth  book  of  the  Republic  or  the  seventh  of  the  Laws 
on  the  military  and  political  aptitudes  of  women :  these  are 
paradoxes  which  influence  no  one.  Maria  Puteolana,  who 
attained  the  rank  of  captain  in  the  Italian  army,  was 
laughed  at;  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  the  military  inspiration 
of  certain  heroines  at  critical  moments  was  regarded  as 
purely  adventitious.  It  came  to  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna 
"  by  the  riches  of  grace  " ;  to  Joan  of  Arc  "  by  divine  grace, 
by  mystery  divine."  So  strong  was  the  belief  in  Joan's 
saintship  that  it  brought  her  to  the  stake.  She  resembled 
Deborah  and  Judith ;  her  story  was  repeated  in  the  most 
insignificant  hamlets,  and  all  France  gave  ceaseless  thanks 
to  God  for  so  clearly  manifesting  Himself  through  the  feeble 
arm  of  a  woman,  a  shepherd-lass:  "sicut  populum  tuum 
per  rnanum  feminae  liberasti."  But  this  was  only  an 
additional  stanza  in  the  love  litany  (long  enough  already) 
lisped  by  poets  and  the  faithful  to  the  Virgin  of  Virgins :  a 
love-poem,  but  at  the  same  time  a  malediction  on  war  and 
the  spirit  of  conquest. 

When  men  spoke,  even  in  favourable  terms,  of  the  women 
who  had  been  thrown  by  the  force  of  circumstances  among 
tragic  incidents  like  these,  it  was  as  though  they  were 
celebrating  a  sort  of  suicide.  Castiglione  has  devoted  verses 
charged  with  real  emotion  to  the  memory  of  a  young  girl 
who  was  mortally  wounded  at  the  storming  of  Pisa  in  1499, 
at  the  moment  when  she  was  leading  on  the  defenders. 
She  was  carried  away  dying,  he  says,  and  as  she  lay  upon 
her  mother's  bosom,  she  exclaimed  that  her  country  owed 
her  no  other  bridal !  "  Virago,"  he  adds,  wiping  his  eyes. 
The  last  word  on  these  military  women  was  said   by  a 

1  [The  brilliant  captain  whose  Memoirs  or  Commentaries,  it  is  said,  were 
afterwards  called  the  Soldier's  Bible  by  Henri  IV.] 


320      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

woman,  the  charming  Isabella  Villamarina,  who  was  resolved 
to  don  man's  clothes  and  start  for  the  army  like  the  wife  of 
Mithridates,  with  no  thought  of  fighting,  but  to  be  with  her 
husband,  the  prince  of  Salerno,  whom  she  madly  loved. 
But  the  prince  insisting  on  her  staying  at  home,  it  occurred 
to  her  to  pass  the  whole  of  the  day  in  bed,  hoping  to  see 
her  husband  in  her  dreams ! 

It  was  not  simply  by  dint  of  philosophical  reasoning  that 
women  avoided  active  and  masculine  occupations.  They 
were  well  aware  that  they  had  everything  to  lose  if  they 
lived  the  life  of  men.  Men  rode  rough-shod  over  them. 
Such  women  as  an  evil  star  did  actually  fling  into  the 
vortex — and  these  were  rare — were  invariably  women  of  a 
robust  and  sensuous  type. 

Could  a  more  striking  example  be  cited  than  Catherine 
Sforza,  a  luckless  princess  perpetually  condemned  to  stand 
on  the  defensive,  and  on  this  account  fated  to  remain  on  the 
outskirts  of  the  world  in  which  she  might  have  played  so 
lofty  a  part?  A  notable  woman,  endowed  with  nature's 
most  prodigal  and  magnificent  gifts;  tall,  strong,  good- 
looking  enough,  with  a  clear,  superb  complexion  ;  in  speech 
warm,  forceful,  impulsive,  her  voice  ringing  out  for  the 
most  part  like  a  trumpet  call,  but  capable  also  of  enchanting 
caresses.  There  was  nothing  theatrical  in  her  wonderful 
force  of  mind,  which  asserted  itself  in  grand  outbursts  on  all 
occasions,  as  when,  for  instance,  she  wrote  to  her  sons  from 
the  depth  of  her  dungeon  in  the  castle  of  Sant'  Angelo, 
bidding  them  not  to  be  concerned  for  her.  "  I  am  habituated 
to  grief,"  she  said ;  "  I  have  no  fear  of  it."  Or  on  that  other 
occasion,  the  day  of  the  storming  of  her  capital,  when  the 
boldest  of  the  French,  forcing  their  way  into  the  innermost 
entrenchments,  succeeded  finally,  after  unheard-of  exertions, 
in  capturing  her,  like  a  lioness  caught  in  a  snare.  Here  we 
have  the  reverse  of  the  medal :  strip  her  of  her  armour  and 
she  is  a  woman,  one  of  the  feeblest  of  her  sex.  Catherine 
exhausted  all  her  vigour  in  politics:  she  was  swayed  by 
her  senses ;  almost  unknown  to  herself  she  imparted  to  all 
about  her  the  unquenchable  thirst  for  sensual  pleasure  by 
which  she  was  herself  devoured.  Her  first  three  husbands 
died  by  the  assassin's  knife.  The  magnificent  Ordelaffi,  one 
of  her  foes,  would  never  have  wrested  the  county  of  Imola 
from  her  by  mere  force  of  arms;  but  to  vanquish  the  woman 


POLITICAL   INFLUENCE  321 

herself  by  the  magnetism  of  the  senses  was  but  the  sport  of 
an  afternoon.  And  when  Catherine,  hopelessly  entangled 
in  these  toils,  heard  the  people  discussing  her,  the  lioness 
roared :  sentences  of  imprisonment  and  the  strappado  were 
the  outward  and  visible  signs  of  her  love.  The  scene 
changes ;  the  amiable  Ordelaffi  gives  place  to  a  lover  more 
worthy  of  her.  Before  the  virile  force  of  this  man,  threat- 
ening constantly  to  sell  his  soul  to  the  devil,  and  (a  more 
serious  matter)  the  state  to  the  Turks,  Catherine  is  sub- 
jugated: she  marries  him.  Feo  becomes  an  odious  tyrant: 
denunciations,  persecutions,  tortures  are  his  wedding  gifts. 
As  was  to  be  expected,  Feo  fell  stabbed  to  the  heart  under 
the  very  eyes  of  his  sovereign,  and  then  Terror  spread  her 
vampire  wings,  and  the  silent  prisons  swam  with  holocausts 
of  blood. 

Were  we  wrong  in  saying,  at  the  outset,  that  under  the 
exquisite  charm  of  life's  manifestations,  the  brute  in  man 
was  struggling  all  the  time!  Possibly  it  was  imagined  that 
in  muzzling  the  brute,  women  were  obeying  a  natural 
instinct,  and  that  there  were  certain  sensualities  and  bestial 
horrors  little  to  be  feared  in  regard  to  women  brought  up  in 
an  atmosphere  refined  almost  to  rarefaction.  According  to 
Nifo  and  others,  all  that  was  wanted  was  to  encourage 
recourse  to  the  platonist  theories.  And  yet  here  we  see,  in 
appalling  contradiction,  this  great  figure  of  Catherine  Sforza 
dominating  her  epoch,  as  though  to  show  to  what  a  pitch 
the  intoxication  of  masculine  women  could  rise.  For  at 
bottom  she  was  a  woman  of  an  excellent  heart — this 
Catherine  who  died  under  the  name  of  Medici ;  a  genuine 
sister  of  mercy,  thoughtful,  generous,  diligent  in  feeding  the 
poor  in  time  of  famine,  and,  when  an  epidemic  was  raging, 
marvellous  as  a  sovereign  and  a  sick-nurse !  And  how 
lovely  she  was'  How  well  she  knew,  in  the  intervals  of 
her  frenzied  existence,  how  to  enjoy  life,  when  she  gave 
herself  up  to  the  beauty  of  her  flowers.,  the  charm  of  her 
gardens,  the  delight  of  seeing  her  splendid  drove  of  cattle 
peacefully  grazing  in  her  parks !  Dogs  never  had  a  more 
tender  protectress.  She  evoked  her  people's  enthusiasm 
and  applause  when,  riding  in  a  red  skirt  at  the  head  of  her 
huntsmen,  like  a  legendary  fairy,  and  reining  up  her  horse 
with  her  delicate  scented  hand,  she  smiled  upon  them  all,  her 
beautiful  white  teeth  flashing  between  her  full  ruby  lips. 

x 


322      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

What  did  she  lack,  then,  to  make  her  in  very  truth  a 
woman  ?  Only  womanliness,  and  the  exquisite  power  of 
using  love  as  a  quickening  instead  of  a  destroying  spirit. 
With  her,  it  was  quite  useless  to  assume  airs  of  ethereality. 
The  style  she  needed  is  that  which  we  find  in  the  letters  of 
one  of  the  men  she  loved,  Gabriele  Piccoli.  This  Piccoli 
served  her  as  ambassador,  and  one  day  Catherine  scolded 
him  for  making  too  free  a  use  of  poetry  in  his  despatches. 
Upon  that,  he  lost  his  head ;  he  felt  that  his  heart  was  all 
aflame,  "  boiling  over  "  he  says ;  he  was  beside  himself  with 
exultation,  speaking  of  his  Divinity,  his  Hope,  anxious  to 
take  flight  and  abandon  everything  in  order  to  live  "under 
the  shadow  and  in  the  confidence  of  his  princess";  then, 
with  a  sudden  transition,  he  reports  in  the  most  precise 
terms  various  diplomatic  schemes,  not  a  little  complicated. 
In  reality,  the  letter  is  that  of  a  man  speaking  to  a  woman  of 
forty,  and  seeing  her  as  she  was,  good-hearted  and  tender, 
yet  vigorous  and  virile.  Why  did  he  love  her  ?  Because, 
all  said  and  done,  she  intoxicated  men.  In  the  evening  she 
would  dance  like  a  mad  thing,1  and  next  morning  go  on 
a  pilgrimage :  a  strange  wild  creature.  She  ended  by 
marrying  a  Medici,  a  man  of  delicate;  idealistic,  almost 
effeminate  temperament.  There  is  nothing  so  strange  as  the 
colloquy  which  took  place  between  her  and  Savonarola. 
She  had  written  to  the  monk  to  request  his  prayers,  and  he 
replied  in  a  charming  letter,  of  mingled  serenity  and  strength, 
in  which  he  takes  high  ground  in  rebuking  her  life.  This 
letter  is  dated  June  18,  1497,  the  very  day  on  which  all  the 
churches  in  Florence  were  thundering  with  the  papal  pro- 
scription launched  against  him.  Ah !  how  tragic,  how 
impressive  an  encounter  was  this,  between  two  souls 
equally  belated,  though  in  a  different  sense  :  the  pure  monk 
face  to  face  with  death :  the  woman,  born  too  soon  or  too 
late,  the  prey  of  destiny !  The  French  formed  an  excellent 
judgment  of  this  woman  of  bronze  and  thunder,  who  had 
ceased  to  be  a  woman :  they  called  one  of  their  most 
formidable  pieces  of  artillery  "  Madame  de  Forli." 

There  was  one  woman,  perhaps,  who  diffused  through  the 
camps  a  real  chivalrous  enthusiasm :  but  this  was  in  Spain, 
and   faith   and  fatherland   were   concerned.     Isabella   the 

1  "  Catherine,  if  you  make  the  dance  go  thus,  Atlas  will  find  the  world  a 
lighter  burden,"  exclaims  a  poet. 


POLITICAL  INFLUENCE  323 

Catholic  ordered  that  she  should  be  buried  on  the  battlefield 
of  Grenada,  wrapped  in  the  broad  folds  of  her  royal  mantle, 
as  though  to  preach  lessons  of  valour  even  after  her  death. 
To  this  day  her  great  soul  appears  to  hold  sway  in  Spain. 

She  was  a  wonderful  mixture  of  different  kinds  of  heroism 
She  was  brave  and  resolute  without  a  touch  of  the  virago 
After  a  night  spent  in  dictating  orders,  she  would  tranquilly 
resume  a  piece  of  church  embroidery,  or,  like  Anne  of  France, 
the   practical   education   of  her  daughters.     In  her   own 
private  affairs  she  was  plain  and  simple,  in  public  she  was 
all  ostentation.      She  was  a  conversationalist  of  the  first 
order,  and  loved   to  attack   high   philosophical   questions,, 
here  and  there  dropping  into  a  discussion  some  original 
phrase,  some  bold  and  clear-cut  thought,  while  her  deep- 
blue  eyes  lit  up  and  darted  upon  her  company  a  certain 
glance  of  warmth  and  loyalty  the  renown  of  which  still 
clings  to  her  name.    A  strange  woman  !  ardent  like  Anne  of' 
France,  guileless,  straightforward,  somewhat  starched  per- 
haps, but  all  heart  for  her  friends,  so  fond  a  mother  that 
she  died  of  the  loss  of  her  children,  so  thorough  a  woman 
that  she  declared  she  knew  only  four  fine  sights  in  the 
world :   "  a  soldier  in   the  field,  a  priest  at  the   altar,  a 
beautiful  woman  in  bed,  a  thief  on  the  gibbet." 

No  king  could  ever  have  exercised  the  same  ascendancy. 
Spain  is  too  proud  a  country !  A  Spaniard  to  whom  you 
speak  of  an  army  will  tell  you  with  perfect  coolness  that  it 
consisted  of  3000  Italians,  3000  Germans,  and  6000  soldiers, 
that  is  to  say,  6000  Spaniards.  Isabella  and  Anne  of 
France  were  of  a  style  which  could  only  succeed  in  Spain  or 
France.  Castiglione  himself  shrinks  in  awe  before  such 
figures,  declaring  that  he  knows  nothing  like  them  in  Italy. 

Michelangelo  showed  himself  to  be  less  pessimisijic,  and 
has  constantly  endowed  his  women  with  ideal  traits  of 
greatness  of  soul.  His  Virgin  of  the  Casa  Buonarotti,  with 
the  profile  of  a  Roman  matron,  holds  herself  erect  and  looks 
straight  before  her  with  the  forceful  eye  of  a  woman  who 
would  dare  anything  in  defence  of  her  treasure,  this  feeble 
little  man  to  be,  gathered  so  close  to  her  breast  that  but  little 
of  his  back  is  visible :  in  very  truth,  fructus  ventris  tui. 

Every    lady    must    have    seen   the    exquisite    Pieta   in 
St.  Peter's  at  Rome.1    It  is  the  finest  monument  ever  erected 
1  Francis  I.  regarded  this  as  Michelangelo's  masterpiece. 


324      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

to  the  honour  of  the  sex.  Overwhelmed  by  the  tragedy  of 
Savonarola,  Michelangelo  has  given  utterance  in  that 
picture  to  the  cry  of  his  soul:  he  makes  his  appeal  to 
women  in  the  name  of  Christ. 

On  her  knees,  with  simplicity,  without  sensible  effort,  the 
Mother  bears  her  dead  Son — a  cruel  burden !  Her  wide- 
flowing  drapery,  her  beautiful  form,  the  purity  of  the  lines 
of  her  face,  all  reveal  so  great  a  force  of  soul  that  the  fact  of 
her  appearing  as  youthful  as  her  son  causes  no  surprise. 
But  the  Christ  is  not,  for  His  part,  pressing  heavily  upon  her. 
Though  He  is  dead,  one  feels  that  He  still  lives,  from  the 
love  which  speaks  forth  from  His  wan,  worn  features :  by 
the  power  of  love  He  has  vanquished  divine  Death,  a  death 
He  sought,  and  almost  loved.  And  the  pure,  grave  mother, 
filled  with  a  profound  compassion,  seems  yearning  to  bring 
Him  forth  a  second  time,  into  a  complete  imperishable  life : 
hers  is  an  impersonal  type,  not  representing  this  or  that 
woman,  this  or  that  mother: 

Le  corps,  enfin  vaincu,  recule  devant  l'anie, 
Et  la  terre,  ayant  vu  cette  Vierge  et  ce  Dieu, 
Va  comprendre  1' Amour  et  respecter  la  Femme. 1 

Michelangelo  exalts  the  eternal  woman,  sustaining  the 
Man  of  Sorrows  by  the  strength  of  love.  He  has  left  us  as 
his  final  bequest,  as  it  were,  the  symbol  of  all  the  strenuous 
women  of  the  fifteenth  century,  who  had  just  run  so 
glorious  a  race  in  Italy,  and  who  saw  from  serene  heights 
the  suffering  they  themselves  never  felt — the  ancestors  of 
Vittoria  Colonna  and  Margaret  of  France.  And  yet  he  had 
no  wish  to  exaggerate.  When  he  came  to  paint  the  Last 
Judgment,  he  no  longer  set  woman  in  the  foreground,  like 
the  naive  old  masters;  he  placed  her  respectfully  in  the 
rear,  giviDg  her  an  attitude  of  humility,  suppliance,  and 
compassion,  because,  even  for  him,  woman  was  before  all 
things  the  incarnation  of  sweetness  and  kindliness,  and 
because,  in  those  dread  hours  when  it  is  for  power  and 
justice  to  pronounce  the  final  doom,  every  woman  must 
needs  stand  in  the  shade. 

*Emile  Trolliet,  La  Vie  silenciewe. 

The  veil  of  flesh  is  rent ;  the  spirit's  light 
Pierces  and  routs  the  clinging  mist  of  sense  ; 
And  Earth,  this  Virgin  and  this  God  beholding, 
Learns  what  Love  is,  and  worships  Womankind. 


CHAPTER  II 

MORAL    INFLUENCE 

The  moral  purification  of  society  is  assuredly  one  of  the 
conditions  of  happiness  ;  hence  it  was  one  of  the  chief 
ends  of  platonism.  The  16th  century,  unfortunately,  was 
one  of  the  most  corrupt  periods  known  to  our  history,  an 
undisputed  fact  from  which  some  people  have  concluded 
that  art  was  the  cause  of  moral  decadence,  because  art  in 
itself  is  unmoral,  and  never  acts  otherwise  than  as  "a 
stimulus  to  debauchery."  These  good  paradoxical  souls 
had  ancestors  as  long  ago  as  the  15th  and  16th  centuries — 
ancestors  who  held  the  same  theory  and  saw  in  aestheticism 
a  fatal  blight  to  humanity.  They  refused  to  acknowledge 
the  idea  of  the  beautiful :  and  the  belief  that  a  careful 
observation  discovers  some  trace  of  beauty  everywhere — 
that  even  in  the  mind  of  a  criminal  there  are  sometimes 
uncommon,  indeed  splendid  faculties,  unhappily  turned  to 
evil — seemed  to  them,  as  it  seems  to  their  successors  to-day, 
a  miserable  error  calculated  to  lead  mankind  to  perdition. 
Platonist  women  and  the  Eoman  world  saw  in  it,  on  the 
contrary,  a  pledge  of  regeneration  and  civilisation. 

We  have  already  said  that  the  world  needed  no  further 
urging  on  the  downward  path ;  love  was  only  understood 
apart  from  marriage,  and  all  that  remained  to  settle  was 
whether  this  love  should  remain  material  or  might  possibly 
become  spiritual. 

All  the  contemporaries  of  platonism  who  regretted  the 
"  good  old  times  "  (and  in  France  they  were  many) — Marot, 
Rabelais,  Collerye  nicknamed  Roger  Bontemps,  Coquillart 
the  sworn  foe  of  the  fashionable  world,  "  bucks "  as  he 
called  them — all  these  clearly  explain  their  position ;  they 

325 


326      THE   WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

lamented  the  disappearance  of  love  "a  la  frangaise"  a 
whole-hearted  love  without  qualifications  and  periphrases ; 
a  love  that  was  very  pleasant  if  not  very  moral.  And  as  to 
the  folk  who  believed  that  virtue  was  corrupted  by  the 
salons,  they  had  only  to  stroll  through  the  fairs,  look  in  at 
the  rustic  festivities  and  balls,  and  chat  with  one  or  two 
tavern  wenches  or  a  village  "old  wife,"  or  even  to  pene- 
trate into  some  of  the  country  houses.  In  Germany,  where 
morals  retained  their  antique  savour,  it  cannot  be  pleaded 
that  Dr.  Faustus,  with  the  little  crippled  love  who  waits  on 
him,  or  the  coarse  bourgeois  Venuses  of  Wohlgemuth  or 
Albert  Diirer,  existed  only  in  imagination  ! 

The  first  contact  with  Italy,  so  far  from  purifying  these 
manners,  only  brought  about  the  exaltation  of  sensualism  ; 
one  of  the  most  popular  of  French  writers,  Octovien  de 
Saint -Gelais,  had  no  scruple  in  raising  a  statue  to 
"  Sensuality."  The  French  saw  in  Italy  only  the  pagan 
side  of  the  Renaissance,  that  of  the  Malatestas1  and  others, 
and,  as  often  enough  happens  when  the  field  of  contempla- 
tion is  so  narrow,  they  perceived  nothing  but  the  more 
striking  and  startling  phenomena — the  flash  of  daggers,  the 
poison  bowl ;  so  much  that  an  excellent  young  man,  Louis 
de  Beauvau,  who  had  wedded  a  young  person  of  humble 
rank  against  the  wishes  of  his  family,  and  repented  of  it, 
profited  by  the  expedition  of  Charles  VIII.  to  get  together 
a  fine  collection  of  poisons  as  he  went  from  town  to  town. 
Certain  Italians  who  had  come  to  France  were  regarded  as 
so  many  jinnish  heralds  of  moral  anarchy.  "  The  only  way  to 
escape  women  is  not  to  see  them  at  all,"  exclaims  one  of 
them,  Andrelini.  In  truth,  it  was  not  long  before  Italian 
society  presented  a  lamentable  spectacle  of  decomposition ; 
observers  felt  painful  heart-burnings  and  overwhelming 
disgust.  "  This  is  too  much,"  cries  Palingenius,  dubbed 
the  Star  of  the  Renaissance :  "  let  me  flee  away  to  some 
peaceful,  solitary  shore." 

From  the  year  1515  onwards  the  court  of  France 
advanced  boldly  along  the  same  path,  dragging  the  country 
with  it.  "  Paris  is  a  fair  city  to  live  in,  but  not  to  die  in." 
What  a  pass  things  had  come  to !     When  five  years  had 

1  [The  sovereign  family  of  Rimini  and  Romagna,  a  race  of  warriors  and 
cut-throats.  Robert,  commandant  of  the  troops  of  Siztus  IV.,  was 
poisoned  by  Riario  in  1483.] 


MORAL   INFLUENCE  32? 

elapsed,  Lemaire,  who  had  been  one  of  the  prophets  of  the  new 
order,  paints  the  situation  in  terrible  colours,  demanding  as 
remedy  a  convocation  of  the  Courts  of  Love.  Charming 
tribunals,  indeed:  but  what  good  would  they  serve?  In  the 
forefront  of  this  corrupt  and  putrid  society  the  official  poet 
shows  us  his  young  king,  with  his  coarse  sensual  lips  wrinkled 
in  a  hideous  smile,  "  consumed  by  women  "  body  and  soul. 

Free  love  flourished.  The  saying,  "  In  case  of  love,  one 
dame  doth  not  suffice,"1  answered  to  the  accepted  axiom  on 
the  fickleness  of  women.  The  noblest  of  ladies  declared 
themselves  "lieutenants  of  Venus."  It  was  love  in  its 
basest  form,  a  matter  of  trade  and  barter,  cold  as  ice; 
nothing  was  wanting  to  its  degradation — diplomatic 
husbands,  women  who  were  "  merchandise  for  kings,"  but 
a  merchandise  which  proffered  itself!  It  is  alleged  that 
Louis  XII.  in  his  decrepitude  knew  not  in  Italy  how  to 
defend  the  virtue  of  which  he  was  so  tenacious.  The 
excellent  Margaret  of  France  was  amazed  when  a  young 
girl  of  good  family  did  not  rush  to  sacrifice  herself  to  a 
caprice  of  her  brother.2  Young  or  old,  it  made  no 
difference.  Women  were  known  to  get  up  bogus  law-suits 
for  the  pleasure  of  corrupting  the  judges.  Others,  with 
greater  attractions,  flocked  to  the  favourite  or  the  minister 
of  the  day  ;  others,  more  numerous,  threw  themselves  at  the 
moneyed  men,  as  rivers  rush  to  the  sea.  No  one  would 
guess  what  shameful  shifts  masked  some  lives  that  seemed 
a  brilliant  round  of  music  and  receptions  and  play;  or 
what  a  singular  population  of  waiting-maids,  pimps,  and 
procuresses  of  all  ranks,  forced  their  unwelcome  services 
upon  a  respectable  man — 

Piteulx  comme  ung  beau  crucifix  ! 3 

Vice  was  everywhere  the  same,  except  for  some  trifling 
shades.     If  an  Italian  and  a  Frenchman  told  the  same  story 

1  En  cas  d'amour,  c'est  trop  peu  d'une  dame, 
Car  si  un  homme  aime  une  honneste  femme, 
Et  s'il  ne  peut  a  son  aise  l'avoir, 
II  fait  tres  bien  d'autre  accointance  avoir. 

(Melin  de  Saint-Gelais). 
[In  case  of  love,  one  dame  doth  not  suffice, 
For  if  a  man  loveth  one  fair  of  fame, 
And  cannot  have  her  at  an  easy  price, 
'Tis  well  for  him  to  have  another  flame.] 
1  Heptameron,  Tale  42.  8  Coquillarfc. 


328      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

of  an  honest  woman  seduced  by  means  of  gold,  they  practi- 
cally differed  in  nothing  but  the  tariff;  the  Italian  lady 
exacts  a  thousand  crowns  and  disappoints  the  purchaser,  the 
Frenchwoman  asks  only  a  hundred  and  faithfully  keeps  her 
word.  When  the  matter  comes  to  light,  the  Italian  husband 
is  very  deferential  to  the  seducer,  but  poisons  the  lady ;  the 
French  husband  contents  himself  with  sending  her  home  to 
her  parents  for  a  time. 

We  must  not  be  understood  to  believe  that  honest  women 
no  longer  existed :  on  the  contrary,  there  were  still  many. 
The  only  difficulty  was  to  find  them,  because  they  kept  out 
of  sight,  or,  at  any  rate,  were  too  apt  to  regard  the  exercis- 
ing of  an  influence  as  beneath  them. 

Good  women  are  often  passive,  incredulous,  or  at  least 
resigned  in  regard  to  evil.  Many  of  them,  brought  up  on 
the  ancient  principle  of  subjection  and  abnegation,  would 
ask  nothing  better  than  to  shut  eyes  and  ears  with  the 
quasi-felicity  of  mummies  petrified  in  an  eternal  sleep,  and 
to  decline  to  believe  in  evil.  There  the  evil  is,  under  their 
own  roof,  touching  them  closely,  wounding  them :  yet  still 
they  «»mile  and  smile,  wishing  to  appear  crowned  with  roses, 
and  doing  their  best  to  fancy  they  are  happy.1  What 
delightful  reasoning,  and  how  precious  to  feeble  and  timid 
women  who  would  fain  eschew  strife,  and  love  always  ! 

Vittoria  Colonna,  for  instance,  feigned  sleep  one  night 
while  her  husband,  by  her  side,  indulged  in  wild 
antics  that  pained  her  deeply.  Nifo  relates,  with  the 
perfect  serenity  of  an  egoist,  an  incident  that  happened 
to  himself.  He  had  shut  himself  up  in  his  study  to  write  a 
Tlcesserologia  astronomica.  After  some  days  his  wife  grew 
anxious,  and  employed  all  kinds  of  stratagems  to  induce  him 
to  relax  the  rigour  of  his  seclusion.  Not  succeeding,  poor 
woman !  she  went  in  search  of  a  young  lady  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, of  whom  she  knew  her  husband  was  enamoured, 
and  whom,  after  she  had  given  her  a  piece  of  her  mind,  she 
brought  back  with  her.  She  shut  the  two  up  together,  with 
the  simple  happiness  of  a  faithful  dog,  flattering  herself  on 
having  discovered  the  solution  of  the  puzzle.  But  no,  Nifo 
remained  glued  to  his  Thesserologia.  Then  the  good  woman 
lost  her  head,  vowed  herself  to  saints  innumerable,  made 
pilgrimage  after  pilgrimage,  and  gave  many  a  votive  offering. 
1  Heptameron,  Tale  8. 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  329 

Three  months  afterward,  Nifo,  when  he  had  written  his 
last  line,  issued  tranquilly  from  his  tomb,  and  condescended 
(so  he  assures  us)  to  raise  his  wife  from  her  depression. 

Devotion  of  this  kind  was  apparently  not  rare  among  the 
women  of  old.  There  was  indeed  a  classical  little  story 
which  passed  from  hand  to  hand  about  a  Madame  de 
Varambon.  Monsieur  de  Varambon  (so  the  story  ran :  we 
must  do  him  at  least  this  justice)  was  a  thrifty  fellow,  and 
his  wife  was  grieved  to  know  that  his  mistress's  apartments 
were  rather  poorly  furnished.  She  ended  by  going  herself 
to  look  after  the  furnishing,  in  profound  secrecy.  This 
story  excited  the  hilarity  of  men  every  time  it  was  told ; 
some  of  them  regarded  Madame  de  Varambon  as  an  old 
humbug ;  others,  as  a  poor  godly  old  soul ; l  and  that  was 
the  sole  reward  of  her  virtue  ! 

Apart  from  this  bent  of  women  themselves  for  submission 
and  seclusion, we  must  note  also  that  Frenchmen  formed  them- 
selves into  a  sort  of  league,  by  no  means  chivalrous,  against 
women  who  got  "  talked  about."  If  a  woman  was  talked 
about,  it  seemed  a  necessary  deduction  that  there  was  some- 
thing bad  to  say  about  her,  and  the  mere  fact  of  a  lady 
acquiring  any  sort  of  public  reputation,  though  entirely  to 
her  honour,  apparently  gave  everyone  the  right  to  fling  mud 
at  her.  This  was  one  of  the  most  formidable  obstacles  to 
the  moral  influence  of  women.  It  seemed  to  many  people, 
in  short,  that  there  was  no  choice  between  virtue  starched, 
prosaic  and  wearisome,  or  no  virtue  at  all :  that  it  consisted 
for  women  in  the  simple  devotion  to  an  ideal  of  family  duty 
— in  which,  however,  they  did  not  always  find  happiness, 
and  which  religion  did  not  always  succeed  in  beautifying, 
for  the  family  affections  are  terrestrial,  and  doubtless  will 
not  survive  the  earth.  Husbands  maintained  this  position, 
finding  it  convenient.  Vice  and  virtue  in  all  their  coarseness 
(there  is  a  coarseness  of  virtue)  were  each  shut  up,  so  to 
speak,  in  a  water-tight  compartment :  "to  each  his  calling"; 
no  compromise,  no  nuance,  no  degree  was  acknowledged; 
virtue  is  always  represented  by  Titian  and  others  with 
harsh  malevolence  as  uncouth  and  ill  to  look  upon,  while 
opposite  her  they  represent  the  true  woman  as  an  em- 
bodied caress. 

Untrue  and  untenable  as  this  distinction  was,  no  one 

1  Heptameron,  Tale  38. 


330      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

cared  to  seek  a  way  out  of  the  dilemma,  not  even  the 
moralists.  Lotto  as  well  as  Titian  represents  the  virtuous 
woman  as  a  goose-girl,  in  conflict  with  Venus !  And  indeed 
the  singular  comparison  in  course  of  time  penetrated  to  the 
core  of  platonist  society,  though  it  was  softened  down  like  a 
much  attenuated  echo.  Raphael,  then  a  charming  boy  of 
twenty,  fresh  moulded  by  the  tender  hands  of  two  princesses, 
was  conscious  of  the  same  thing  in  his  Vision  of  a  Knight 
in  the  National  Gallery. 

To  him  also  the  grave  woman  holding  a  sword  and  a 
book  seems  a  timid  creature;  he  leaves  her  in  the  back- 
ground as  though  unwilling  to  show  herself,  and  limns 
behind  her  only  a  rocky  steep  and  a  church  spire  soaring 
into  the  sky.  The  other  lady,  on  the  contrary,  graceful  in 
form  and  feature,  stands  out  distinctly  before  lovely  meadows 
sloping  down  to  a  swift-flowing  stream.  What  does  she 
hold  ?  A  flower,  no  more.  This  is  love  indeed,  but  emin- 
ently tender,  eminently  reasonable,  almost  ineffectual. 
Raphael  was  so  young ! 

Why  then,  even  in  the  eyes  of  this  delicate-minded  strip- 
ling, does  virtue  keep  this  character  of  ungainliness  and 
frigidity  1  Were  there  in  his  day  none  of  those  women  of 
sound  mind  and  steadfast  soul  who,  while  knowing  how  to 
leave  men  undisturbed  in  their  pride,  how  (so  to  speak)  to 
respect  them,  knew  also  how  to  stimulate  them  to  set  happi- 
ness above  the  woes  of  life  ?  It  is  not  even  the  lash  of 
passion  we  are  speaking  about;  great  love  has  some 
trenchant  quality  that  cleaves  a  way  through  materi- 
alities ;  it  is  purification  par  excellence ;  it  would  remove 
mountains  and  still  the  waves.  Happy  the  woman  who 
has  once  encountered  it,  thrice  happy  she  who  has  been 
able  to  recognise  it  and  seize  it  ere  it  passed !  For  it  has 
but  one  defect,  its  exceeding  rarity;  and  if  the  moral  re- 
generation of  society  were  absolutely  dependent  on  it,  a 
woman  would  do  better  to  fling  up  the  struggle,  encase 
herself  in  triple  brass,  mystically  shut  her  eyes  to  evil, 
await  a  miracle,  and  hope  for  nothing  on  this  earth  but  the 
repentant  tears  of  her  husband ! 

We  are  speaking  merely  of  women  of  vigour,  made  to 
support  and  guide  men — the  women  whom  men  style 
"dragons."  They  are  a  species  which  achieves  little 
success  in  the  world;  men  regard  them  as  somewhat  too 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  331 

masculine,  and  are  constantly  making  fun  of  them,  especially 
when  there  are  good  reasons  for  so  doing.  At  Naples,  for 
instance,  one  of  these  dragons — Dona  Maria  d'Aragona,  a 
respectable  mother  of  seven — created  no  little  amusement 
because  (so  the  story  ran),  in  her  desire  for  a  large  experi- 
ence, she  had  wished  to  live  with  her  husband  three  years 
as  a  wife,  three  as  a  sweetheart,  and  three  as  an  enemy. 
Men  do  not  understand  such  women ;  it  is  a  sense  they  are 
deficient  in.  These  women  were  out  of  date, — women  of 
the  15th  century,  of  the  time  before  Savonarola.  They 
remind  one  of  those  old,  high,  rugged  ramparts  which 
perforce  crumble  away,  and  to  which  we  prefer  a  spick- 
and-span,  vulgar  boulevard,  blocked  up  with  gingerbread 
stalls. 

And  yet  the  moral  influence  of  women,  from  a  social  and 
general  standpoint,  did  make  itself  felt,  especially  in  Italy. 
"You  must  not  judge  men  from  the  crust,"  as  Anne  of 
France  very  well  said.  The  opposing  parties  were  so  little 
divided  from  each  other  that  it  is  not  easy  to  distinguish 
them ;  there  were  materialists  who  did  not  scorn  the  ideal, 
and  idealists  by  no  means  unsympathetic  to  the  material, 
and  it  was  that  which  gave  an  opening  to  the  moral 
preacher. 

For  instance,  Nifo,  whom  we  have  mentioned  as  a  personal 
foe  to  Plato,  had  begun  by  fighting  against  Thomas  of 
Aquinas  in  the  materialist  camp;  but  on  being  shown  his 
folly  by  the  Bishop  of  Padua,  a  prelate  of  parts,  he  changed 
sides  with  a  great  flourish  of  trumpets,  fell  lustily  upon  his 
master  Pomponazzi,  and  became  a  Roman  count  with  the 
name  and  the  arms  of  the  Medici :  to  his  own  satisfaction 
and  delight,  for  logical  minds  love  success.  And  by  and  by 
we  discover  him,  folios  in  hand,  falling  at  the  feet  of  female 
beauty  with  surprising  agility, — quite  eclipsing  Victor 
Cousin,  whose  passions  were  of  the  mere  milk-and-water 
order  and  very  much  behind  the  times.  Renan,  who  has 
left  us  an  excellent  appreciation  of  Nifo,  reproaches  him 
with  the  somewhat  wobbly  character  of  his  doctrine ;  but 
this  is  the  very  thing  that  interests  us.  If  men  were  not 
inconstant,  platonism  would  have  no  further  utility.  Nifo, 
in  short,  was  a  converted  character.  If  men  are  bent  on 
fighting,  we  must  not  complain  that  a  woman's  hand  can 
sometimes  draw  them  into  the  crack  regiments. 


332      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

This  means,  someone  will  say,  that  the  conscience  and 
the  lofty  deductions  of  a  serious  or  even  a  distinguished 
man  depend  on  the  rustle  of  a  petticoat  or  the  colour  of 
certain  eyes  ?  Even  so ;  if  the  woman  stands  for  more 
than  a  petticoat  and  two  bright  eyes,  if  she  really  has  a 
heart,  ardent  and  vigorous  affections  in  which  the  man's 
spirit  finds  refreshment,  what  could  be  more  natural  or 
moral  ? 

Look  at  Nifo  again.  Ugly,  hideous,  untractable  as  he 
was,  he  completely  changed  his  tune  under  the  influence  of 
a  few  artificial  (perhaps  too  artificial,  indeed !)  courtesies ;  if 
he  retained  some  of  the  claws  of  the  primitive  man,  some 
thorns  of  the  wild  stock  which  it  was  so  difficult  to  graft, 
what  does  that  prove  but  that  under  a  woman's  fingers  the 
roughest  bushes  burst  into  brilliant  flower?  Nifo  even 
came  to  wear  almost  the  same  moral  livery  as  Bembo.  He 
speaks  of  Plato  only  with  respect,  and  of  materialism  only 
with  disdain  as  a  not  very  formidable  doctrine  from  which 
good  taste  and  spiritual  refinement  cannot  but  preserve 
women ;  he  pretends  to  go  as  far  as  the  "  imaginatives  "  in 
the  direction  of  sociological  love;  he  adopts  in  principle 
Plato's  theory  of  love  as  an  intermediary  between  the 
Creator  and  the  creature ;  "  beauty — aye,  I  gladly  confess 
it — is  that  which  produces  love."  His  only  weakness  (a 
very  natural  one)  is  that  he  cannot  arrive  at  the  Absolute, 
as  Socrates  understood  it,  without  traversing  this  earth;  that 
he  prefers  to  vague,  immaterial,  supersensual  dallying  with 
love  the  personal  encounter  of  two  living  beings.  On  this 
head  the  meanest  logicians  do  not  allow  themselves  to  be 
silenced.  They  unreservedly,  enthusiastically  recognise  the 
religion  of  beauty  and  love,  and  its  admirable  effects  on 
society  and  the  world ;  but  at  the  same  time  they  are  not 
quite  at  one  about  definitions.  They  pause  in  a  sort  of 
numb  fascination  before  a  pretty  little  piece  of  piety  who 
suddenly  pretends  she  forgets  her  body  and  is  only  a  soul ; 
they  are  like  Dante  in  Purgatory,  when  he  opened  his  arms 
and  clasped  nothing  but  air  They  do  not  prostrate  soul  and 
body  in  adoration  before  a  shadow,  a  reflection,  a  transient 
gleam  of  beauty;  it  seems  good  to  them  to  love  a  particular 
woman  in  virtue  of  a  special  affinity,  or  a  need  of  settling 
down ;  and  in  these  circumstances  they  would  in  good  sooth 
think  it  great  folly  to  torture  themselves  under  the  fallacious 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  333 

plea  that  sweet  love  if  gratified  is  slain.  Love,  they  say,  is 
one  and  indivisible,  not  too  base  nor  too  divine  "  You  may 
cite  me  your  heroes,  your  saints,  your  angels :  you  may 
explore  the  whole  realm  of  antiquity  to  unearth  types  like 
Socrates  and  Anaxarchos  (or,  if  you  please,  Xenocrates,  who 
spent  a  whole  night  in  tranquil  admiration  of  Phryne): 
everything  is  possible.  I  myself  furnish  a  magnificent 
example  in  loving  Fulvia  without  any  base  desire.  But 
these  are  masterly  achievements  of  saints  or  philosophers, 
and  St.  Jerome  shows  a  keen  insight  into  humanity  when 
he  ordains  that  men  shall  either  regard  all  the  Lord's 
virgins  with  a  generic  affection,  or  shall  not  love  any  of 
them.  Horace  maintained  that  with  greybeards  the  flesh  is 
dead ;  St.  Jerome  replies :  '  You  say  that  the  flesh  is  dead, 
and  I  tell  you  that  the  devil  is  eternal.'  Love  must  be 
distinguished  from  friendship."1 

In  France  it  was  another  story.  Men  were  much  more 
self-assertive.  We  do  not  find  them  appealing  to  these  cir- 
cumlocutions or  these  tender  ironies.  The  annihilation  of 
matter  would  have  struck  them  as  almost  an  outrage. 
Among  them  things  took  an  entirely  different  complexion 
from  that  which  we  have  indicated  in  the  feminist  society  of 
Italy.  Being  the  masters,  they  regarded  love  as  indispens- 
able, and  beauty  as  always  good :  "  If  we  thought  ladies 
were  without  love,  we  should  long  for  death " ;  only,  adds 
Erasmus,  "they  grant  women  nothing  but  from  love  of 
sensual  pleasure " ;  and  the  more  highly  placed  they  hap- 
pened to  be,  the  more  natural  it  seemed  to  them  to  degrade 
love.  "  To  gratify  a  prince  " — we  know  what  that  means ; 
there  is  no  question  here  of  an  elevated  love  like  the  love 
which  fills  princesses'  dreams. 

The  moral  conflict  on  this  point  was  in  France  acute. 
When  Margaret  essayed  to  purify  the  society  of  her  court 
by  a  leaven  of  beauty,  her  entourage  checked  her,  refusing 
to  allow  any  effort  towards  embellishing  human  life  with 
the  ideal.  These  men  held  too  closely  to  the  old  logical 
and  realist  spirit.  They  loved  Plato,  but  truth  still  more. 
They  did  not  realise  that  their  brutal  realism  had  the  effect 
of  throwing  women  off  at  a  tangent,  for  a  religion  of  some 
sort  is  always  necessary ;  to  save  themselves  from  men, 
women  of  high  birth  and  noble  bearing,  carried  away  by 

1  Nifo,  De  Amore,  cap.  xvi.  :  De  viro  aulico,  Bk.  I.,  caps,  xxx.-xxxiv. 


334      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

an  enthusiasm  in  some  sort  heroic,  attained  to  a  mystic  con- 
ception of  a  life  of  pure  sensibility. 

But  then  what  is  the  beginning  and  what  the  end  of  the 
dream  ?  Without  touching  on  the  cruel  questionings  of 
philosophy  about  the  reality  of  our  physical  perceptions,  or 
on  many  of  the  ambiguous  phenomena,  where  does  the 
vision  begin  in  the  moral  life,  if  life  involves  so  many 
fancies,  illusions,  loves,  gleams,  which  act  upon  us  but  have 
no  real  existence? — so  many  vague  aspirations,  admirable 
but  unsubstantial  ?  To  fall  headlong  from  a  height  into  an 
abyss  is  a  violent  experience  which  kills  too  quickly ;  the 
mystic  vision  is  only  possible  on  condition  of  coddling  the 
soul  within  the  four  walls  of  a  convent ;  out  in  the  world  it 
falls  and  is  lost:  that  was  the  opinion  of  the  logicians. 
When  Margaret  relates  with  what  energy  of  virtue  she 
escaped  the  realistic  assaults  of  Bonnivet,  and  how,  at  the 
cost  of  a  few  scratches,  she  has  reduced  him  to  the  cold 
comfort  of  the  Ideal,  her  husband  is  the  first  to  laugh, 
saying :  "  If  I  had  got  so  far,  I  should  think  myself  disgraced 
to  fail  of  attaining  my  goal." 1 

It  is  a  cynical  saying,  and  raises  a  general  protest ;  but 
Henri  d'Albret  explains  it  very  placidly,  and  we  cannot 
give  the  gist  of  his  retort  better  than  in  the  following 
sentence  of  M.  Bourget:  "You  have  the  morality  of  life, 
without  having  the  morality  of  the  heart."  Henri  rejoices 
to  see  his  wife  keep  up  appearances,  but,  from  the  moral 
standpoint,  he  finds  no  great  difference  between  her  and 
himself,  except  in  practical  conduct :  "  She  and  I  are  both 
children  of  Adam  and  Eve."  He  laughs  and  sneers  at  the 
nebulous  philosophical  aspirations  of  the  princess,  and  is 
not  the  only  man  who  has  got  this  strange  impression  that 
the  sins  of  the  spirit  and  the  sins  of  the  flesh  are  equipollent. 
"  A  fortress  which  parleys  is  half  won,"  says  with  feigned 
good-humour  one  of  the  speakers  in  the  Heptameron, 
appearing  to  forget  that  Margaret  as  an  inveterate  gossip 
had  readily  accepted  the  sobriquet  of  Parlamente.2 

Not  merely  did  the  adversaries  of  platonism  accuse  it  of 
being  only  moral  in  appearance,  but  this  very  semblance  of 
morality,  resting  on  a  misapprehension,  seemed  to  them  an 
hypocrisy  that  aggravated  the  fault.  They  regarded  pla- 
tonism as  evil  and  wanting  in  seriousness ;  Louise  of  Savoy, 

1  Heptameron,  Tale  4.  2  Heptameron,  Tales  18  and  25. 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  335 

an  inveterate  kill-joy,  at  once  sour  and  sympathetic  in 
regard  to  pleasures  she  is  past  enjoy ing,  inveighs  bitterly 
against  love  that  is  only  skin-deep — the  vanities  and  tricks, 
the  husk  and  chaff  of  love  that  is  simply  a  comedy  in 
which  two  actors  show  their  skill ;  she  prefers  a  fault  with- 
out scandal  to  a  scandal  without  fault.  However,  the  issue 
seems  to  her  perfectly  clear:  "Either  you  love,  or  you  do 
not.  If  you  love,  why  impose  on  yourself  the  torment  of 
Tantalus  ?  If  you  do  not,  why  impose  it  on  others  ? "  She 
would  rather  succeed  in  a  piece  of  folly  than  fail  in  a 
virtuous  action,  however  logical  and  practical. 

She  has  a  way  all  her  own  of  squelching  the  fancies 
of  her  daughter;  she  allows  them  to  swell  and  swell,  and 
then  gives  the  merest  little  pin-prick.  Someone  speaks, 
for  instance,  of  a  queen  clever  enough  to  impose  seven  years' 
preliminary  probation  on  her  lover  :  "  Then  she  didn't  wish 
to  love  or  be  loved ! "  1  If  someone  feelingly  exclaims  : 
"  When  love  is  strong,  the  lover  knows  no  meat  and  drink 
but  the  look  and  voice  of  the  loved  one,"  she  retorts  that 
she  would  much  like  to  see  how  he  looked  on  such  fare ! 2 
At  the  conclusion  of  a  droll  story,  a  maid  of  honour  who 
is  a  little  over-excited  declares  that  she  would  rather  be 
flung  into  the  river  than  live  in  intimacy  with  a  Franciscan  ; 
and  Louise  replies  with  her  placid  smile :  "  Then  you  can 
swim  well  ? "  The  other  retorts  in  great  irritation :  "  I 
know  some  who  have  resisted  more  prepossessing  men  than 
a  Franciscan,  without  blowing  their  own  trumpets  about 
it."  Louise,  laughing  more  than  ever,  replies,  "  Still  less 
do  they  beat  the  drums  about  what  they  have  done  and 
granted." 3  She  is  a  sceptic  and  a  logician ;  with  all  her 
boldness  of  speech,  she  is  never  over-paradoxical.  More- 
over, she  applied  her  principles  to  herself,  and  had  such  a 
way  of  encouraging  her  daughter's  lovers  that  they  quite 
naturally  paid  their  addresses  to  her.  At  the  opening  of 
the  Heptameron,  for  instance,  one  of  Margaret's  numerous 
admirers,  furious  to  see  his  princess  receive  a  passionate 
declaration  with  laughter,  hies  him  to  the  mother. 

Almost    everybody    in    France    shared    the    views    of 

Henri  d'Albret  and  Louise  of  Savoy.     Platonism  sprang  up 

among   thorns.      And   so   far  from   there   being   any   bias 

in  its  favour,  there  awoke  a  reaction  against  the  finnikin 

1  Heptameron,  Tale  24.  8  Ibid.,  Tale  50.  s  Ibid.,  Tale  5. 


33G      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

absurdities  of  bygone  days, — for  instance,  against  the 
"bashful  knights"  who  sported  furs  in  summer,  and 
summer  cloaks  in  winter,  in  order  to  give  ocular  demon- 
stration that  "love  was  all-sufficient."  That  sort  of  mys- 
ticism struck  men  as  sickly.  They  preferred  frankness  and 
vivacity, — the  frothy  sparkle  of  champagne  to  the  sugared 
liqueur,  golden,  soft,  limpid,  heavy,  old  in  bottle,  which 
bore  the  Italian  label.  Rabelais,  who  is  our  Michelangelo, 
takes  great  care  not  to  dive  into  the  mysteries  in  Ficino's 
way,  or  to  pile  up  a  heap  of  folios  after  the  example  of 
Nifo.  Look  at  him,  with  his  learning  and  his  consummate 
intellect,  sitting  before  a  dish  of  peas  fried  in  fat,  seized 
with  inextinguishable  laughter  as  he  thinks  of  the  "celestial 
and  priceless  drug  "  of  Plato's  Symposium,  and  deriding  all 
the  Picos  della  Mirandola  past  and  future  in  the  person  of 
Messire  Pantagruel,  who  maintains  against  all  opponents 
9764  conclusions,  some  of  them  highly  platonic,  on  "the 
philosophical  cream  of  encyclopaedic  questions,"  on  "the 
platonic  idea,  hovering  dexterously  under  the  orifice  of 
chao3."  Rabelais  dedicates  his  Life  of  Gargantua  to  topers 
and  the  gouty. 

And  then  you  hear  the  loud  chant,  the  babel  noise,  of 
gold,  of  Plutus,  rising  above  and  drowning  all  other  sounds. 
Artists  no  longer  cling  to  the  old  shabby  studio  in  which 
they  strove  after  the  ideal :  they  have  now  come  to  dwell 
in  palaces,  and  some  there  are  whose  art  consists  in  coining 
false  money  or  running  after  the  philosopher's  stone — if  not 
in  worse  occupations.  Even  where  men  are  wistful  and 
dream,  in  the  heart  of  melancholy  Brittany,  the  poor  human 
soul,  compared  by  a  preacher  to  a  runner  started  upon  the 
long  race  for  eternal  life,  halts  and  stoops  at  every  moment 
like  Atalanta,  to  pick  up  apples  of  gold.1 

Thus  the  battle  was  joined  on  all  sides  at  once,  and  the 
struggle  was  fierce.  Among  so  many  ingratitudes,  so  many 
keen-pointed  shafts,  women  needed  a  proud  courage  to 
continue  imperturbably  spreading  through  the  world  the 
spirit  of  love,  the  religion  of  beauty. 

They  did  not  succeed  in  subduing  mankind  at  large,  nor 
in  directing  their  moral  energies.     That  dream  had  to  be 

1  Calvin  regards  his  co-workers  as  "playactors,"  worthy  of  bespattering 
with  mud.  "The  future  appals  me,"  he  cries  :  M  I  dare  not  think  of  it : 
unless  the  Lord  descends  from  heaven,  barbarism  will  engulf  us."  (Preface 
to  the  Geneva  Catechism.) 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  337 

relinquished.  They  resigned  themselves  to  the  thank- 
less task  of  individually  doing  what  little  they  could  do 
thi-ough  their  sympathy  and  tenderness.  This  was  all  they 
could  give,  and  it  cost  them  dear,  for  it  too  often  involved 
concessions,  many  bitter  and  secret  tears,  a  love  mingled 
with  disgust,  an  unavoidable  duplicity  ! 

They  had  perforce  to  content  themselves,  then,  with  this 
measure  of  success.  To  show  clearly  in  what  this  success 
consisted,  we  shall  divide  our  brief  account  into  two  parts  ; 
for  their  sensibility  was  exerted  in  two  directions.  Under 
their  influence  virtue  and  vice  became  each  an  art :  their 
defects  and  excesses  were  moderated.  On  the  one  hand  the 
over  harsh  virtues  were  softened,  or,  if  we  may  coin  a 
word,  de-austerified,  and  endowed  with  a  cheerfulness  of 
aspect  they  had  formerly  lacked  ;  on  the  other,  vice  was 
ennobled,  and  the  gap  between  vice  and  virtue  thereby 
diminished.  In  brief,  women  tried  to  make  life  beautiful 
rather  than  good,  and  piously  to  rehabilitate  everything 
which  had  possibilities  of  beauty,  in  virtue  of  the  principle 
that  the  Beautiful  is  good  and  purifies  all  things. 

L  THE  SOFTENING  OF  VIRTUE. 

The  principles  already  established  are,  briefly,  as  follows : 
happiness  resides  in  love,  love  consists  in  self-surrender. 
Of  this  there  are  several  modes  :  one  may  surrender  body 
and  soul,  or  soul  alone — or  nothing  at  all !  To  give  the  soul 
is  the  true  platonism ;  to  give  nothing  is  the  false.  The 
surrender  of  the  body  is  the  time-honoured  sacrament  of 
marriage. 

How  did  they  set  about  reconciling  these  various  ele- 
ments ?     In  a  manner  that  was  simplicity  itself. 

We  have  said  that  marriage  had  become  a  human  and 
reciprocal  contract,  concluded  with  a  definite  object  between 
two  fellow-creatures;  and  logically  there  was  no  reason 
why  it  should  not  have  ended  as  it  began,  by  mutual 
consent,  that  is,  in  the  community  of  women 1  according 
to  Plato's  idea. 

But  on  the  contrary  the  platonists,  who  looked  for  no 
poetry  in  the  prose  of  wedlock,  regarded  one  marriage  as 

1Aretino  wrote  placidly:  "I  have  legitimated  my  dear  girls  in  my 
heart;  no  other  ceremony  is  needed." 

Y 


338      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

quite  sufficient,  if  not  excessive.  Further,  the  institution 
was  an  ancient  one  ;  it  was  a  matter  of  use  and  wont.  To 
maintain  the  organisation  of  society  and  the  foundations  of 
aristocracy,  it  was  necessary  to  retain  the  formula  and 
merely  to  draw  from  it  the  moral  consequences  implied  in 
the  principle  of  equality  of  rights. 

Up  to  that  time  the  morality  of  marriage  had  been 
regulated  by  the  authority  or  even  the  caprice  of  the 
husband.  A  bastard  (provided  he  was  begotten  by  the 
husband)  had  almost  the  status  of  a  legitimate  child;  in 
many  cases  he  was  bred  at  the  paternal  hearth,  away  from 
his  mother,  under  the  charge  of  his  father's  wife ;  and  in 
Italy  he  very  easily  secured  legitimation,1  and,  if  other  heirs 
failed,  carried  on  the  family.  What  was  much  worse  than 
deceiving  his  wife,  the  husband  believed  he  had  the  right  to 
neglect  her.  From  that  time  forward  retaliation  appeared 
to  be  the  guiding  principle ;  instead  of  remaining  head- 
nurses,  of  adopting  children  from  heaven  knows  where,  of 
toiling  to  efface  all  signs  of  the  caprices  of  their  lords  and 
masters,  women  "  unhappily  married "  no  longer  saw  the 
necessity  of  fettering  themselves,  of  refusing  their  share  of 
happiness,  of  carefully  guarding  what  was  despised. 

Luther  gave  material  fixity  to  this  principle  by  permitting 
divorce ;  he  maintained  marriage,  but  at  the  same  time 
allowed  re-marriage  ;  in  other  words,  he  retrograded  as  far 
as  possible  towards  the  manners  of  the  past.  In  case  of 
default,  even  involuntary,  on  the  part  of  one  of  the  con- 
tracting parties,  he  thought  it  quite  right  to  replace 
"Vashti  by  Esther."  We  know  what  fortune  attended 
these  ideas.  Melander,2  when  blessing  a  "  duplicate " 
marriage  of  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  proceeded  to  say  that 
everything  in  this  world  wears  out,  and  that  monogamy 
had  had  its  day.  A  book  of  extremely  liberal  views 
attributed  to  Bugenhagen3  adduced  examples  of  bigamy 

1  Natural  children  easily  obtained  recognition  by  the  concession  of  the 
right  to  bear  arms,  or  their  legitimation.  In  Italy,  legitimation  was  only 
a  fiscal  formality ;  Innocent  VIII.  gave  his  nephew  the  right  of  granting 
it. 

2  [The  Grecised  name  of  Otto  Schwartzmann,  German  jurisconsult  (1571- 
1670).] 

[3The  "Pomeranian  doctor"  (1485-1558).  He  married  Luther,  and 
buried  him,  and  was  one  of  his  coadjutors  in  the  translation  of  the 
Bible.] 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  339 

among  the  early  Christians.  Polygamy  met  with  some 
support;  near  the  end  of  his  life,  Ochino1  became  its 
advocate. 

The  platonists,  however,  allowed  no  retouching.  The 
ancient  doctrine  that  the  body,  with  all  its  weaknesses  and 
infirmities,  received  with  marriage  an  indelible  brand,  as  in 
former  days  convicts  were  marked,  after  all  seemed  to  them 
to  be  salutary,  since  the  end  of  marriage  was  obedience  to 
the  physical  law  "increase  and  multiply."  But,  the  law 
once  fulfilled,  by  what  strange  aberration  did  they  wish  to 
bind  souls  to  this  abandoned  body,  truly  a  derelict  of  life  ? 
So  far  as  heart  and  soul  were  concerned,  the  community  of 
women  (or  rather,  the  community  of  men)  seemed  a  moral 
reality,  constituting  indeed  the  clearest  distinction  that 
could  be  drawn  between  mankind  and  the  animals.  This 
"  spiritual  libertinage "  was  condemned.  Calvin  flouted 
it  and  preferred  divorce — a  singular  taste,  not  very  refined, 
eminently  worthy  of  countries  where  fleshly  love  was  culti- 
vated, with  rope-ladders  and  without  platonism.2  Wedlock 
has  its  good  points,  but,  as  everyone  knows,  it  is  never 
supremely  delightful ;  love  ought  to  be  a  delight  and  a 
religion.  The  wife,  stepping  forth  in  her  turn  into  life,  has 
a  right  to  think  a  little  about  herself  and  her  highest  needs, 
to  cultivate  her  heart  and  soul,  to  blossom  out  and  com- 
plete herself.  "Complete  herself!"  some  one  will  say: 
"  then  'tis  a  question  of  a  subsidiary  marriage  ? "  Yes,  but 
of  a  marriage  wholly  moral,  in  which  the  carnal  concessions 
are  purely  aesthetic  and  ostensible, — in  which  she  boasts  (so 
far  as  essential  points  are  concerned)  of  a  platonism  as 
perfect  in  regard  to  her  lover  as  in  regard  to  her  husband. 

In  the  year  of  grace  1523,  a  young  lady  of  the  Roman 
aristocracy,  whom  history  names  Costanza  Amaretta,  pretty, 
refined,  and  pious,  made  a  journey  of  devotion  to  Florence 
for  the  Easter  festivals,  and  there  met  her  ideal  in  the  shape 

1  [Bernardino  Ochino  of  Sienna  (1487-1565),  He  was  a  monk,  and  for 
three  years  general  of  the  Capuchins,  but  turned  Protestant  and  got  into 
hot  water  with  the  Church.  He  spent  a  few  years  in  England  at  the 
invitation  of  Cranmer  A  man  of  rare  independence  of  mind,  his  opinions 
soon  verged  towards  heresy,  and  his  Dialcxji,  in  which  he  opposed  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Incarnation,  the  divinity  of  Christ,  and  others,  and  spoke  in 
favour  of  polygamy,  brought  on  him  the  displeasure  and  even  persecution 
of  his  co-religionists.] 

2 "  Diflkiles  aditu  fugias  in  amore  puellas."    (Cellis,  Qualtuor  libri.) 


340      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

of  a  cultivated  and  distinguished  man  named  Celso.  They 
lived  together  under  the  same  roof  in  perfect  chastity. 
When  Easter  was  past,  they  set  out  with  four  kindred 
spirits  for  a  countr}7  house  of  Celso's,  and  there,  in  the  joy- 
ous spring  weather,  among  the  cypresses  and  tufted  pines 
and  early  flowers,  this  idyllic  society  of  platonists  gave 
themselves  up  to  the  delights  of  poetising  and  philosophis- 
ing at  large.  Costanza,  elected  queen  of  the  coterie,  un- 
bosomed herself  to  them.  She  had  been  married  when  very 
young,  as  the  custom  was,  to  a  man  of  business  with  little  of 
the  ethereal  in  his  composition — a  man  of  eminently  practical 
mind,  and  manners  almost  intolerable.  With  him  she  had 
contracted  no  real  moral  ties.  "  But  for  this  man's  desire  of 
having  children  by  me — for  he  thought  me  beautiful — we 
should  have  felt  nothing  but  hatred  for  each  other."  In 
Celso's  company,  however,  the  path  of  virtue  seems  to 
Costanza  covered  with  roses  instead  of  thorns,  and  hence  to- 
day her  eyes  are  opened  to  the  truth,  she  perceives  with 
perfect  clearness  the  moral  utility  of  the  platonist  distinc- 
tion between  the  two  kinds  of  love,  the  one  bestial,  matri- 
monial, fraught  with  peril,  a  thing  of  this  world,  perishable, 
— the  other  celestial,  life-giving,  a  foretaste  of  Paradise,  a 
love  that  enraptures  the  soul  and  fills  it  in  truth  with  a 
radiance  divine. 

Perfect  lovers  thus  found  perfect  pleasure  in  making  an 
offering,  but  not  a  sacrifice,  of  their  flesh — in  deliberately 
lifting  themselves  above  gross  physical  rules  and  living 
delicately  as  angels  incarnate.  Castiglione  with  extravagant 
eulogy  reminds  us  of  the  wonderful  feat  accomplished  by  two 
of  these  dilettanti  of  love,  who  spent  six  months  in 
conjugal  intimacy  and  perfect  continence ;  that  was  what 
he  calls  love,  the  ideal  existence,  pure  beauty  !  There  was 
even,  at  Milan,  a  religious  order  devoted  to  the  mutual 
edification  of  the  sexes  on  these  lines,  but  after  a  time  the 
archbishop  decreed  its  dissolution.1 

Truth  to  tell,  we  do  not  know  exactly  how  far  this  species 
of  platonism  extended ;  it  is  a  land  difficult  to  map  out ;  in 
such  matters  no  statistics  are  available,  and  even  in  these 
days  when  we  can  reel  off  the  number  of  bushels  of  wheat  or 
dozens  of  eggs  France  can  produce  in  any  month,  there  is  no 
official  return  on  the  virtue  of  women. 
1  Htptameron,  Tale  30. 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  341 

But  we  are  not  indisposed  to  believe  that  the  platonic  life 
a  deux  numbered  more  adepts  than  might  be  imagined.  So 
many  women  of  loveless  heart  aspired  to  the  happiness  of 
finding  for  it  some  safe  repository,  and  regarded  the  body  as 
so  much  dross,  infinitely  inferior.  The  example  of  Judith 
struck  them  as  not  only  above  criticism,  but  sublime.  If 
one  had  groaned  under  the  burden  of  the  first  marriage, 
surely  it  was  all  the  more  needful  to  set  the  second  upon  a 
pedestal,  and  so  to  preserve  above  everything  the  illusions, 
the  dreams,  the  anticipations,  however  vague,  which  bring 
us  out  of  moral  and  physical  distress  into  light  and  life ! 
The  young  platonist  lady,  all  soul,  who  lived  in  the  arms 
of  her  lover  and  relinquished  nothing  but  her  soul,  fancied 
that  she  was  realising  a  holy  and  religious  dream ;  love, 
which  purifies  all  things,  wafted  her  in  peace  and  confidence 
towards  the  celestial  spheres ;  for  faith,  hope,  love — what  are 
they  but  the  sheet  anchors  of  the  soul  ?  That  was  her 
whole  position.  If  by  this  means  she  could  enter  into  ful- 
ness of  life,  was  she  so  very  foolish  in  availing  herself  of  it  ? 

Unhappily,  love  sought  as  a  rule  only  its  own  abasement, 
and  the  mission  of  these  fair  apostles  declared  itself  rather 
in  aggressive  sallies  than  in  spiritual  edification.  Platon- 
ism  had  to  come  down  a  peg,  and  to  meet  the  demands  of 
men  it  had  to  turn  distrustful,  descend  to  trivialities  and 
deceit, — to  place  reliance  on  artifice.  Thus  was  born  a  new 
species  of  platonism — more  popular,  and  more  open  to  criti- 
cism in  point  of  morality. 

This  secondary  art  of  platonism  was  hardly  known 
beyond  the  borders  of  Italy ;  it  demanded  a  patience  and  a 
consummate  suppleness  which  we  do  not  possess.  The 
impatience  of  Frenchmen  in  matters  of  love  was  proverbial ; 
they  would  rather  seize  than  woo;  they  would  boil  and 
chafe,  utterly  unable  to  appreciate  the  wily  tactics  of  Ovid 
or  Martial,  very  often  expecting  to  begin  at  the  end 
without  any  preliminary  finessing,  and  making  flirtation 
altogether  impossible.  And  Frenchwomen,  too, — must  we 
confess  it  ? — were  but  poor  hands  at  the  game.  Some  of 
them  caught  fire  instead  of  winning  love  without  loving, 
and  there  were  young  girls  like  Mademoiselle  de  Piennes 
who  wrung  their  hands  before  the  whole  Court  in  despair  at 
a  lover's  desertion.  The  French  were  so  constituted ;  they 
applied  principles  they  did  not  possess,  while  the  Italians 


342      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

excelled  in  holding  principles  without  applying  them.  And 
thus,  whatever  else  they  did,  the  former  were  not  very 
successful  in  finding  salvation  through  chimerical  ideals,  and 
virtue  had  infinite  trouble  to  convince  them  of  her  intoxi- 
cating charm :  they  could  not  manage  to  persuade  themselves 
that  stones  and  arabesques  are  man's  proper  sustenance,  but 
remained  faithful  to  the  realities  they  knew  through  the 
senses.  Everything  else  was  only  ridiculed,  and,  as  few 
women  are  insensible  to  mockery  and  a  cutting  phrase,  the 
ladies  were  sometimes  led  where  their  own  hearts  would  not 
have  taken  them. 

Platonic  love,  then,  was  regarded  in  France  as  a  compli- 
cated business.  The  women  had  to  confess  that  no  means 
had  yet  been  discovered  of  crystallising  the  things  of  life 
apart  from  the  dispensation  of  Providence  which  has  given 
us  bodies,  nor  of  curbing  men  by  the  mere  vision  of  the 
ideal. 

So,  as  we  have  seen,  Margaret  of  France  strove  to  mako 
her  body  the  transparent  vesture  of  her  soul.  We  have 
seen,  too,  what  tender  familiarities  the  ladies  authorised  at 
their  morning  toilet,  and  at  other  times. 

Modesty  to  them  consisted  not  in  the  more  or  less  brutal 
systems  of  the  "  all  in  all  or  not  at  all,"  but  simply  in 
remaining  women. 

Chary  of  making  a  confidant  of  doctor  or  chaplain, 
because  unwilling  to  subject  themselves  to  either,  they 
valued  the  man  who  regarded  them  as  women  and  had  eyes 
only  for  them  ;  as  a  reward  for  his  exclusive  attentions  they 
certainly  thought  they  owed  him  some  little  privilege 
beyond  what  they  allowed  to  others.  It  was  they  who 
were  the  doctors,  the  confessors,  or  rather  the  rescuers; 
they  sprang  into  the  water  to  save  the  drowning  man. 
To  save  him  by  bestowing  on  him  the  true  gift,  a  little 
of  themselves,  appeared  to  them  a  good,  a  moral,  a  meri- 
torious work !  This  was  far,  you  perceive,  from  the 
commonplace,  masculine  handshake  which  women  now- 
adays grant  to  all  and  sundry!  Seriously,  they  fancied  they 
were  thus  winning  heaven ;  their  own  hearts  constantly 
heard  echoes  of  the  sweet  strains  of  Plato's  Phaedo  or 
Crito;  his  exquisite  distinction  between  soul  and  body 
made  music  in  their  ears,  and  the  familiar  spirit  of  Socrates 
bound    them    to    an    immaterial    world,   whispering    his 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  343 

counsels  and  intuitions.1  They  saw  no  harm  in  bestowing 
their  indulgent  favour,  their  smile,  and  a  little  more.  It 
was  enough  for  them  "to  hold  fast  unto  the  end,"  and 
to  remain  firm  as  rock  on  the  essential ;  they  were  innocent 
of  "false  scruples,"  and  would  have  thought  it  cruel  and 
ridiculous  to  torture  a  man  by  refusing  him  "  familiarities 
that  Nature  has  permitted  to  beauties,"  now  that  this 
small  change  cost  them  so  little,  and  above  all  touched 
them  so  little.  Ah!  that  was  not  where  the  temptation 
lay !  At  the  bottom  of  their  hearts,  how  they  despised 
the  shallow,  insignificant  men  who,  with  their  large  and 
canting  talk  of  love  and  sentiment,  could  be  caught  like 
gudgeon  with  this  paltry  physical  lure ! 

The  critics  of  a  certain  lady  went  so  far  as  to  accuse  her 
of  "losing  all  shame,"  because  when  receiving  one  of  her 
friends,  as  she  lay  in  bed  in  the  morning,  she  tolerated  not 
a  few  familiarities,  "  without  any  offence  to  my  honour,"  as 
she  observed.  She  replied  with  heat  that  she  saw  in  her 
conduct  nothing  but  what  was  excellent;  her  friend  would 
esteem  her  doubly  for  having  seen  body  and  soul  united 
in  her  "in  one  strain  of  chaste  beauty."  As  to  the  danger 
of  this  familiarity,  listen  to  her  subtle  and  delicious  reply  : 
"  The  man  I  love,  the  man  I  dread  is  not  he ;  it  is  another 
who  has  laid  siege,  not  to  my  body,  but  to  my  soul.  Ah ! 
if  I  did  not  keep  a  rein  on  my  heart,  it  would  long  ago 

1  Souvienne-toy,  regaignant  ta  raison, 
Que  ta  maitresse  est  de  grande  maison, 
De  noble  sang,  et  non  pas  amusee 
A  devider  ou  tourner  la  fusee  ; 
Et  que  son  ceil,  mais  plutot  un  soleil  dore, 
Et  son  esprit,  des  autres  adore,  } 

Et  ses  cheveux,  les  liens  de  ta  prise, 
Sa  belle  main,  a  la  victoire  apprise, 
Son  ris,  son  chant,  son  parler  et  sa  voix, 
Meritent  bien  le  mal  que  tu  recois. 

(Ronsard.) 

[Remember,  when  thou  canst  regain  thy  nous, 
Thy  mistress  is  of  high  and  famous  house, 
Of  noble  blood,  nor  is  she  wont  to  play 
At  wheel  and  distaff  all  the  livelong  day. 
Remember  that  her  eye,  a  sun  of  gold, 
Her  mind,  by  other  worshippers  extolled, 
Her  hair,  the  bonds  of  thy  captivity, 
Her  lovely  hand,  well  trained  to  victory, 
Her  smile,  her  song,  her  speech,  her  gentle  voice 
Deserve  that  for  thy  smart  thou  shouldst  rejoice.] 


344     THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

have  spoken  to  me  in  favour  of  the  other  man  ! " l  This 
is  the  cry  of  the  fastidious  woman  who  dreads  only  the 
rape  of  the  mind  !  We  do  not  discuss  her  moral  scheme,  we 
pass  no  judgment,  we  confine  ourselves  to  relating.2  Her 
end  was  to  make  herself  loved,  and  in  a  manner  which 
would  be  worth  the  trouble. 

It  is  not  hard  to  believe  that  the  bounds  were  sometimes 
overstepped :  some  men  abused  their  privileges,  especially 
with  regard  to  princesses  of  literature  like  Louise  Labe;8 
and  sometimes  it  happened,  indeed,  that  cries  a  little  too 
genuine  broke  from  the  lips  of  women,  and  were  heard 
above  this  tender,  philosophic  poetry,  and  this  scorn  of 
earth.     Yet  many  women,  in  their  devotion  for  spreading 

1  Et,  si  Ton  dit  que  le  prive  toucher 
Faict  pres  du  feu  le  tison  approcher, 
Je  respondray  :  II  y  ha  ja  longtemps 
Que,  si  l'honneur,  oil  tousjours  je  pretens, 
N'eust  en  moy  deu  faire  plus  de  demeure, 
Un,  que  nommer  je  ne  veux  pour  ceste  heure, 
Par  les  effors  de  sa  langue  diserte 
Auroit  plus  tost  tire"  gaing  de  ma  perte, 
Que  par  baisers,  ne  par  approchements 
Qui  tie  la  chair  ne  sont  qu'attouchemens. 

H^roet  (one  of  Margaret's  friends) 

[And  if  one  says  the  intimate  caress 
Is  fire  to  tinder,  then  will  I  confess 
That  if  the  honour  hitherto  my  pride 
Within  my  soul  no  longer  would  abide, 
Long,  long  ere  now  a  man  I  will  not  name 
(Lest  at  this  hour  it  bring  us  both  to  shame), 
Would  by  his  tongue's  delicious  eloquence 
Have  won  his  profit  at  my  dear  expense 
Far  speedier  than  by  kiss  or  dalliance  hot, 
That  titillates  the  flesh,  and  is  forgot.] 

aThe  ancient  Valentinians  went  much  farther,  and  maintained  that  it 
is  impossible  to  the  witty  to  become  corrupt,  whatever  their  actions. 

8  Qu'eust  fait  ce  grec,  si  ceste  image  nue 
Entre  ses  bras  Fust  Venus  devenue  ? 
Que  suis-je  lors,  quand  Louize  me  touche 
Et,  l'accollant,  d'un  long  baiser  me  baise  ? 
L'ame  me  part,  et,  mourant  en  cet  aise, 
Je  la  reprens  ja  fuiant  en  sa  bouche 

[What  would  that  Greek  of  old  have  done  if  in  his  clinging  arms 
His  naked  statue  had  become  Venus  with  all  her  charms  ? 
And  when  Louisa  touches  me,  ah  !  what  is  then  my  bliss, 
When  all  my  body  tingles  with  the  thrill  of  her  long  kiss  ? 
In  that  sweet  agony  I  die,  my  soul  then  from  me  slips ; 
But  I  catch  it  as  it  passes  'twixt  my  lady's  burning  lips.] 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  345 

pure  happiness,  for  holding  men  captive  lest  they  sold 
themselves,  would  often  have  preferred  that  conversation 
should  be  the  sum  total  of  their  intercourse,  and  that  their 
friends  should  be  content  to  dip  in  their  eyes  and  their 
soul. 

Their  aim  was  to  reduce  everything  to  conversation ; 
they  had  little  love  for  a  contemplative  silence,  for  songs 
without  words :  conversation  allowed  opportunities  of 
probiDg,  caressing,  penetrating  the  soul,  turning  it  inside 
out  without  the  least  inconvenience  and  with  many 
benefits.  Among  close  friends  they  showed  their  art  by 
getting  someone  to  sing  to  them  the  old  cantilena,  "  I  die 
of  thirst  beside  the  fountain's  edge " ;  sometimes  they 
held  under  their  eyelids  a  large  unsuspected  tear.  They 
made  a  hungry  man  forget  his  food  ;  "  they  contented  their 
lovers  with  words,  promised  a  reward,  and  deferred  it  till 
to-morrow." 

The  Italians,  as  we  have  said,  delighted  in  tasting  love  thus 
at  leisure  in  little  sugared  sips  ;  they  were  not  gluttons  like 
the  French  :  they  appeared  born,  not  to  construct  railways 
or  to  inflate  balloons,  but  simply  to  love,  to  love  loving,  to 
nourish  themselves  on  futilities  and  surprises,  to  sing 
always  the  same  meaningless  song.  They  cut  marvellous 
figures  at  the  feet  of  those  women  "before  whom  desire 
burnt  away  like  candles  at  a  shrine " ;  they  glossed  over 
realities,  as  if  they  really  believed  more  in  happiness  that 
came  from  the  unknown  than  from  the  known,  as  the  great 
scorner  of  women,  La  Rochefoucauld,  has  well  said  ;  to  such 
an  extent  that  the  inexhaustible  springs  of  the  heart 
were  sufficiently  depleted,  so  far  as  they  were  concerned,  to 
spare  them  the  risk  of  embarrassment  from  love,  and  to 
enable  them  safely  to  find  the  recreation  necessary  to  the 
overtaxed  human  mind.  Happy  creatures,  these  men  with- 
out a  care !  The  narrow  world  in  which  they  fluttered 
seemed  too  big  for  them,  and  their  long  wings  touched 
the  ground ;  they  were  young,  yet  old  ;  they  were  gay  with 
brilliant,  yet  faded  colours  ;  a  woman  could  take  their  arm 
in  complete  confidence  that  all  would  end  where  it  began. 
Life  was  for  them  one  aimless  flirtation,  a  mere  battle  of 
flowers. 

Love,  as  thus  carried  to  extreme  perfection  in  society, 
came  in  for  no  little  mockery.     No  one  was  under  any 


346      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

illusion  as  to  the  impossibility  of  finding  in  it  a  secret 
source  of  strength  and  life ;  it  was  a  mere  avocation,  a  little 
intellectual  pastime — with  no  overpowering  demand  on  the 
intellect. 

The  Italian  "cicisbeo"  or  "death  of  love"  became  a  sort  of 
amiable  spectre,  a  harmless  necessary  cat;  he  was  practically 
non-existent  to  his  friends,  and  had  the  right  of  not  answer- 
ing his  letters.  Sweetly  scented,  with  a  well-hosed  leg,  a 
rose  in  his  hand  and  a  flower  at  his  ear,  his  lips  pursed  up, 
his  bearing  graceful  and  gallant,  at  his  heels  a  lackey  whose 
duty  was  to  flick  off  the  least  speck  of  dust — there  you 
have  him,  always  the  same,  whoever  the  object  of  his 
passion.  All  he  troubled  about  was  rightly  to  place  his 
glances  and  sighs,  his  nods  and  salutations,  and  when  he 
had  been  rewarded  with  a  gracious  smile  or  an  arch 
look,  he  would  go  off  humming  to  indite  a  sextain  or  a 
madrigal. 

The  mawkish  execrable  creature  !  more  womanish  than 
women,  a  woman  spoilt  in  the  making,  a  half- woman ! 
Sticking  like  a  shadow  to  the  lady  of  his  thoughts,  his 
function  was  to  carry  her  lapdog,  her  prayer-book,  or 
what  else  she  pleased.  At  her  house  he  installed  himself  as 
the  centrepiece  of  her  receptions,  kept  the  conversation 
alive,  and  overwhelmed  the  husband  with  affectionate  atten- 
tions. 

He  was  a  hypocrite,  a  rakish  fop  !  In  the  Ttoman  aristo- 
cracy he  usually  took  the  shape  of  a  sanctimonious  recluse ; 
at  Naples  he  was  a  man  of  energy  and  go ;  at  Venice  a  man 
of  mystery  ;  in  Lombardy  he  had  the  joyous  self-assurance 
of  the  North  ;x  at  Florence  he  was  a  vivacious  talker,  re- 
sponding to  the  challenges  of  silvery  voices  with  audacious 
quips.  He  took  everything  as  it  came ;  he  had  not  an 
ounce  of  sincerity  :  his  cleverness  consisted  first  in  adapting 
himself  entirely  to  the  beloved  object,  in  abdicating  all 
individuality,  in  being  hers  and  hers  alone  ;  secondly, 
in    proceeding    platonically    and    without    passion,    with 

1  There  are  some  rather  lively  and  amusing  letters  of  Bihbiena.  On 
February  7,  1516,  he  wrote  to  the  Marchioness  of  Mantua  .  ■'  The  compli- 
ments your  Excellency  has  been  good  enough  to  pay  me  on  behalf  of 
Isabella  have  given  me  supreme  pleasure,  for  I  have  always  loved  and  still 
love  Isabella  more  than  myself.  I  am  wholly  Isabella's,  body  and  soul ;  so 
that,  whether  loving  or  not  loving  Isabella  Mario,  I  am  wholly  hers,  and 
desire  above  all  things  in  the  world  to  be  loved  by  her." 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  347 

extreme  prudence,  trusting  to  suavity  and  tenderness, 
always  securing  a  line  of  retreat,  and  striving  above  all 
to  melt  the  obdurate  heart.  In  all  this  part  of  the 
programme  the  eyes  often  were  better  servants  than  the 
tongue. 

This  point  rounded,  every  man  for  himself !  An  eclectic,  a 
hot  lover,  an  abstract  philosopher,  a  symbolist,  an  idealist — 
let  him  be  any  of  these  if  his  heart  bids  him.  He  is  a  tine 
talker  ;  well,  'tis  a  great  talent,  which  will  permit  him  to 
turn  to  account  a  thousand  little  incidents,  but  will  often 
(let  him  not  deceive  himself)  lead  to  only  superficial  successes. 
A  wary  woman  holds  fine  talkers  in  awe ;  with  them,  she 
thinks,  there  is  all  the  making  of  domestic  broils;  she  knows 
how  indiscreet  they  are,  and  she  smiles  on  them  and  keeps 
them  at  a  distance,  knowing  that  this  is  the  way  to  set 
them  proclaiming  her  virtue  abroad.  Often  she  prefers 
a  taciturn,  above  all  a  bashful  man,  "  a  lenten  lover,"  as 
someone  said,  easy  to  feed.1 

But  it  is  impossible  to  enumerate  all  the  eccentricities 
that  were  part  and  parcel  of  this  flirtation.  The  ridiculous 
became  the  rule :  it  was  an  afflicting  spectacle  for  human 
dignity.  Old  men  cut  capers,  young  men  lost  their  heads, 
the  witty  turned  imbecile,  the  imbecile  set  up  for  wits. 
What  a  masquerade !  The  lugubrious  blubbered  about 
their  love,  sighed  in  prose  and  verse ;  the  sincere  embraced 
a  whimsey — adopted  a  colour,  for  instance.  One  of  these, 
having  vowed  himself  to  green,  so  strictly  embargoed  the 
rest  of  the  spectrum  that  not  only  was  everything  on  him 
green,  even  to  his  shirt-buttons,  but  he  ate  out  of  none 
but  green  plates,  drank  out  of  none  but  greenish  glasses, 
never  rested  till  he  had  discovered  green  bread,  and  made 
green  meadows  and  groves  the  exclusive  burden  of  his 
song. 

Happily,  conversation  somewhat  raised  the  level  of  this 
extravagant  and  lamentable  affectation.  Surrounded  by  a 
circle  of  friends,  a  man  would  amuse  himself  by  launching  a 
graceful  declaration  concealed  in  an  aphorism  or  a  double 
entendre ;  it  sometimes  happened  that  a  lady  who  had 
never  entered  the  speaker's  head  fancied  that  hers  was  the 
heart  aimed  at,  and  that  was  provocative  of  fun.  Or 
perhaps  they  would  linger  out  the  pleasure  of  a  tete-a-t&te, 
1  Heptameron,  Tales  20,  25,  14. 


348      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

reel  off  their  witticisms1  and  amiable  compliments,  and 
unravel  little  puzzles  in  sentimental  casuistry.  Sometimes 
they  reached  the  stage  where  the  tete-a-t&te  that  was  really 
delightful  was  one  in  which  neither  said  a  word. 

Here  some  one  will  stop  us  and  ask  whether  all  this  did 
not  have  an  end.  Bless  you,  no  !  An  end  was  in  no  wise 
necessary ;  genuine  platonic  romances  never  end.2  And 
what  years  and  years  they  may  last !  A  clever  woman 
excels  precisely  in  spinning  them  out ;  if  she  feels  that  the 
fire  is  burning  low.  she  has  a  thousand  means  of  fanning 
it  into  flame — a  word,  a  tender  gesture,3  a  little  present,  a 

JHere  are  specimens  of  Phausina's  talk,  that  Nifo  found  so  delightful. 
"  l'hausina,"  said  he,  "since  it  befell  me  to  love  you,  you  have  become  an 
Aurora,  superb,  resplendent !  How  happy  it  makes  me  !  " — "  Near  such  a 
sun  as  you,"  she  replies,  "ought  I  not  to  become  the  finest  dawn  ever 
seen?" 

"One  day  I  asked  her  how  it  was  that  with  her  sixteen  years  and  her 
charm  she  could  love  an  old  fellow  like  me,  reciprocity  of  love  resulting 
philosophically  from  a  certain  similarity." — "True,  we  are  different,"  she 
replied  prettily,  "yet  we  are  wholly  at  one  in  the  basis  of  our  mutual  love" 
(she  meant  beauty  of  soul). 

"  Who  is  the  true  lover  ?  "  he  said.  "  The  idolater,"  she  replied,  "  is  he 
who  adores  the  image  and  not  the  divinity ;  the  false  lover,  he  who  loves 
the  face  of  a  girl,  but  does  not  respect  her  modesty. " 

"  l'hausina,  how  can  you  love  a  man  with  one  foot  in  the  grave?"  "  'Tis 
not  the  dotard  I  love  so  warmly,  but  he  whom  neither  age  nor  anything 
can  affect ;  he  who,  after  his  death,  will  come  to  life  again." 

"One  day  I  was  teasing  Phausina :  to  provoke  her  1  said,  'Come  now, 
Phausina,  when  you  are  quite  old,  do  you  think  I  shall  still  love  you?' 
•  Why,  of  course,'  she  said :  '  what  you  love  in  me  will  not  grow  old. 
Petrarch  loved  Laura  ardently,  young,  mature,  living,  dead :  he  saw  no 
mark  of  age,  which  nevertheless  he  might  have  earnestly  desired,  so  that 
he  might  enjoy  her  beauty  without  any  suspicion.1  And  I  then  asked 
Phausina  what  would  be  the  reward  for  such  a  love.  '  That  you  will  not 
be  a  liar  when  you  shower  your  praises  on  me.' " 

2  "  One  day,  among  the  group  of  girls,  someone  set  the  little  problem  of 
guessing  what  gave  me  the  greatest  pleasure  in  my  relations  with  Phausina. 
One  of  them  said  it  was  to  gaze  at  so  pretty  a  woman,  another  that  her 
conversation  was  very  sweet,  another  swore  that  in  reality  it  was  because 
we  wrangled  so  pleasantly,  and  that  she  knew  it.  Phausina  smiled  and 
said  :  '  We  all  know,  my  dear  Nifo,  that  all  those  things  go  to  produce  my 
pleasure  :  but  my  deepest  satisfaction  is  to  be  able  to  enjoy  everything, 
frequently,  freely,  without  fear  of  material  seductions,  because  of  your 
Age."' 

8  Ma  dame,  un  jour,  daigna  tant  s'abaisser, 

Parlant  a  moy,  de  doucement  me  dire  : 

1  Je  ne  te  veux,  amy,  rien  escond[u]ire 

Qui  soit  en  moy,  je  te  pry  le  penser.' 

Et  pour  encor  du  tout  recompenser 

Mod  triste  cueur  de  l'endure*  martire, 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  349 

gracious  act  here,  a  secret  gentleness  there,  a  touch  of 
jealousy ;  and  then  she  suggests  that  you  should  recom- 
mence the  little  game — church,  the  park,  sighs,  tears,  oaths. 
And  thus  you  may  go  on  for  ever. 

There  are,  however,  some  romances  which  do  end,  well  or 
ill.  As  a  rule  the  event  is  announced  by  rolling  clouds  and 
a  lightning-flash.  The  majority  of  men  only  enter  the 
platonic  life  with  the  idea  of  an  early  departure,  and 
implicitly  believe  that  in  the  life  of  every  woman — even 
though  she  be  a  "  dragon  " — there  is  .  one  inevitable,  irre- 
fragable hour.  Psychologists,  philosophers,  poets,  preachers l 
all  have  repeated  ad  nauseam  the  saying  of  Ovid :  "  A  chaste 
woman  is  she  whom  none  has  tempted," 2  or,  as  La  Roche- 
foucauld and  La  Bruyere  will  phrase  it  later :  "An  insensible 
woman  is  she  who  has  not  yet  found  the  man  she  must 
love." 

The  lady  affects  not  to  see  the  storm  brewing;  she 
bears  up  against  it  gallantly ;  gentle  banter  is  her  cue ;  she 
declares  that  talk  of  love  is  very  pleasant  to  her,  but  'tis 
well  known  among  decent  people  what  that  word  signifies ; 
there  is  no  question  of  a  coarse,  sensual  love,  but  only  of 
amorous  discourses.  The  man  gives  himself  up  to  demonstrat- 
ing his  love  anew ;  his  plaints  become  louder,  his  tears  more 
copious  ;  his  lady-love  never  gets  to  sleep  o'  nights  without 
hearing  serenades  or  "Spanish  lamentations"  beneath  her 
window,  or   sighs   that  would    seem   belled   out  by  some 

Sa  blanche  main  hors  du  gand  elle  tire 

Et  me  la  tend  pour  la  mener  dauser.         (Magny,  p.  7.) 

[My  fair  did  condescend  one  day 
Sweetly  to  speak  to  me,  and  say  : 
"  My  friend,  nothing  will  I  deny  thee 
Of  all  I  have,  come  prithee,  try  me. " 
And  for  to  recompense  my  heart 
For  all  its  grievous  dole  and  smart, 
From  out  her  glove  she  drew  her  lily  hand, 
To  lead  her  forth  to  dance  did  then  command.] 

1 "  And  you,  Madam,  if  you  succumb  to  the  flesh,  beat  your  breast,  for 
you  do  not  shun  temptation.  Why  do  you  stand  at  your  window  ?  why 
chat  with  young  men  ?  .  .  .  Why  go  to  the  ball  and  give  yourself  to  so  many 
idle  conversations  ?  Shun  temptation,  and  the  devil  will  leave  you  in  peace. 
Resist  him  and  he  will  flee  from  you  ! "  Woman's  tongue  is  one  of  the 
greatest  of  the  devil's  instruments  :  "  I  did  that  because  the  devil  seduced 
me  :  "  it  is  Eve  over  again  :  "  The  serpent  beguiled  me."    (Baraleta.) 

2  "  Casta  est  quam  nemo  rogavit." 


350      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

familiar  spirit,  but  which  are  really  a  performance  got  up  by 
obliging  neighbours,  for  a  consideration.  All  day,  at  church, 
in  the  ballroom,  in  the  street,  under  the  thin  disguise  of 
masks,  he  is  here,  there  and  everywhere,  never  out  of  her 
sight. 

One  morning  the  maid  announces  to  her  misti'ess  that  the 
gentleman  is  at  the  door  with  something  most  urgent  to  say 
— here  he  is,  indeed,  pushing  past  the  girl ;  and  he  will  be 
eloquent,  you  may  be  sure.  Or  he  resorts  to  the  grand  means 
of  melodrama — false  keys,  rope-ladders,  narcotics,  sorcery, 
lying  confessions  of  apostate  monks ;  or  to  the  stale  and 
hackneyed  devices  of  comedy ,  he  enlarges  eloquently  on  his 
high  qualities,  proffers  a  thousand  services,  and  even  opens 
his  purse ;  full  of  promises  the  while  erecting  beautiful 
castles  in  the  air.  One  will  employ  menace,  another  will 
boldly  haggle  and  argue  with  father  or  husband.  What  a 
warmth  of  language,  what  sighing  and  sobbing,  what  fretting 
and  fuming !  "  Fulvia  being  come  on  horseback  to  see  me, 
I  straightway  feigned  a  superb  wrath,  as  though  her  action 
seemed  to  me  that  of  too  forward  a  minx.  And  this  fine 
choler  of  mine  was  of  great  avail  in  my  courting."  There 
are  some  who  carry  the  fortress  by  dint  of  lavish  praises, 
superlative  verses,  outbursts  of  jealousy.  Others  by  con- 
tinual dropping  wear  away  the  stone. 

If  a  princess  had  the  idea  that  her  rank  would  prove  a 
sufficient  rampart  against  this  final  assault,  she  had  to  find  out 
her  mistake,  especially  in  France.  Why  should  not  the  man 
she  loved — the  dear  good  fellow! — after  so  many  labours, 
and  discreet  frenzies,  and  stratagems,  and  covert  approaches, 
expect  an  advancement  he  so  well  deserved  ? 

A  bien  servir  et  loyal  estre, 

De  serviteur  on  devient  maistre  !  * 

"Madam,"  proudly  says  one  of  the  young  nobles  of 
Margaret  of  France,  "  when  our  mistresses  stand  on  their 
dignity  in  halls  and  assemblies,  seated  at  their  ease  as  our 
judges,  we  are  on  our  knees  before  them ;  we  lead  them  out 
to  dance  with  fear  and  trembling;  we  serve  them  so 
sedulously  as  to  anticipate  their  requests ;  we  seem  to  be 
so  fearful  of  offending  them  and  so  desirous  cf  doing  them 

1  The  servant  that  is  brisk  and  trusty 
Becometh  master  ere  he  be  rusty. 


MORAL   INFLUENCE  351 

service  that  these  who  see  us  have  pity  on  us,  and  very 
often  esteem  us  more  simple  than  foolish,"  and  sing  the 
praises  of  ladies  able  thus  to  win  service.  "  But  when  we 
are  by  ourselves,  and  love  alone  doth  mark  our  looks,  we 
know  right  well  that  they  are  women  and  we  are  men,  and 
then  the  name  of  liege  lady  is  converted  into  sweetheart, 
and  the  name  of  servitor  into  lover." * 

And  it  need  not  be  supposed  that  in  such  circumstances 
they  remained  satisfied  with  words  or  menaces,  even  in 
dealing  with  ladies  of  the  most  exalted  station.  There  were 
violent  characters  who  stuck  at  nothing,  like  Bonnivet !  It 
also  happened  at  critical  moments,  even  in  the  most  platonic 
of  circles,  that  love  turned  into  rage.  "  Unico  Aretino,"  one 
of  the  Urbino  talkers,  upset  by  what  he  thought  a  piece  of 
base  ingratitude  on  the  part  of  the  charming  duchess 
Elizabeth,  got  so  beside  himself  with  anger  as  to  call  his 
sovereign  lady  "Urbino's  traitress,  witch,  trickster."  (Aretino 
was  an  exceedingly  clever  man,  but  after  all  he  was  only  the 
fourth  part  of  a  prelate ;  he  filled  at  Rome  the  fourth-rate 
office  of  "  apostolic  abbreviator,"  and  pretty  badly  at  that ; 
but  as  he  afforded  the  Sacred  College  a  deal  of  amusement 
he  was  licensed  to  indulge  in  all  sorts  of  jocularities.)  He 
never  forgave  the  duchess,  and  even  after  her  death  pursued 
both  her  and  her  daughter  with  persistent  rancour.2 

The  ideas  of  men  in  these  matters  simply  beggar  imag- 
ination. They  fancied  that  they  erred  on  the  side  of 
bashfulness,  that  they  suffered  wrong  when  ladies  suggested 
"  reckonings,"  to  use  their  term.  They  thought  it  would  be 
ridiculous  to  die  of  despair  like  the  heroes  of  romance,  and 
that  it  was  "  folly  and  cruelty "  to  praise  the  beauty  of  a 

Heptameron,  Tale  40,  and  prologue  of  first  day. 

8  "  Most  illustrious  and  wicked  girl.  When  the  terrible  duchess  Elizabeth 
was  alive,  she  made  me  her  martyr  and  protomartyr  ;  and  you  perhaps,  nay 
certainly,  with  your  angel's  face  and  your  serpent's  heart,  were  her  per- 
fidious counsel  to  my  detriment  ;  and  now  look  at  me,  compelled  by  aid  of 
medicine  to  support  as  best  I  can  the  miserable  remnant  of  a  life  thus 
exhausted.  Through  that  pity  which  you  know  not,  either  in  life  or  in 
fiction,  you  will  condescend  to  do  me  the  favour  to  send  me  a  baratollo  or 
rather  a  little  tree  of  barbe  di  calcatrepuli,  a  specialty  of  Urbino,  so  that  I 
may  boast  of  once  having  had  a  prayer  granted  by  the  flinty  ladies  of  the 
house  of  Gonzaga.  I  do  not  commend  m}'self  to  your  highness,  not  wish- 
ing to  waste  my  words  on  the  air.  I  only  pray  Heaven  to  keep  you  long  in 
health  and  happiness,  so  that  you  may  long  make  mincemeat  (macello) 
of  your  servitors — Your  servant  for  life,  Unicus." 


/, 


352      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

fountain  to  a  poor,  thirsty  fellow  and  then  kill  him  because 
he  wished  to  drink.1  *'  Whom  will  you  get  to  believe," 
cries  Henri  d'Albret,  "  that  we  ought  to  die  for  women,  who 
were  made  for  us,  and  that  we  should  hesitate  to  require  of 
them  what  God  bids  them  give  us  ?  "2  That  was  the  con- 
clusion that  must  be  expected :  everyone  knows,  in  Calvin's 
words,  whither  "  all  roads  "  lead.  So  a  woman  was  neither 
surprised  nor  panic-stricken  in  the  hour  of  battle.  She  had 
taken  or  ought  to  have  taken  her  precautions ;  her  first 
care,  as  we  have  said,  was  to  distribute  her  favours.  She 
went  forth  to  the  fight  with  a  gallantry  which  some  old 
fogies  called  impudence ;  her  sins  were  no  longer  sins  of 
omission,  like  those  of  her  grandmothers.  And  that  she 
often  triumphed  there  is  no  manner  of  doubt.  Margaret  of 
France,  at  the  turning-point  of  the  battle,  is  found  as  firmly 
fixed  on  principles  as  Anne  of  France.  Billon  assures- us 
that  in  Normandy,  a  land  of  pretty  women,  where  he  would 
not  care  to  go  bail  for  a  single  man,  he  would  not  hesitate 
to  name  a  very  large  number  of  women  whose  virtue  he 
could  guarantee  with  every  confidence.  Assuredly  there 
existed  stainless  women, — just  the  women  to  play  with  fire ! 

But  did  they  always  come  off  scatheless  ?  No  one  will 
believe  it. 

Further,  it  must  be  remarked  that  the  point  of  view  of 
casuistry  had  changed.  The  body  was,  so  to  speak,  the 
sign-manual  of  the  soul;  just  as  the  base,  passionless, 
sensual  vice  prevalent  in  the  world  seemed  ignoble  and 
disgusting,  so  it  was  remembered  that  love  had  a  purifying 
power.  The  merciful  words  of  the  Gospel  were  recalled, 
and,  remarkably  enough,  it  was  those  who  were  most 
rigorous  in  regard  to  themselves  who  showed  the  most 
indulgence  towards  an  error  springing  from  sincere  affection. 

Margaret  of  France  spreads  her  nets,  like  the  Gioconda, 
but  for  the  good  of  others,  for  she  knows  whither  the  mist- 
enveloped  paths  lead ;  she  cannot  tear  her  eyes  from  the 
vast  and  gloomy  background  of  life,  and  all  that  passes 
in  front  of  it  inspires  her  at  times  with  cruel  loathing.  She 
loves  mankind,  but  without  the  least  touch  of  fetishism ,  to 
look  aloft  and  not  believe  in  any  individual  man  is  the 
condition  of  her  love ;  her  sole  consolation  is  the  thought 
that  Italian  morals  are  worse  than  French.  Her  approval 
1  Heptameron,  Tale  8  2  Tales  9,  10. 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  353 

of  a  German  husband,  who  had  the  fantastic  notion  of 
locking  his  wife  up  along  with  the  skeleton  of  her  lover,1 
was  so  exaggerated  that  all  her  friends  were  compelled  to 
laugh.  And  yet,  when  pulled  up  short  about  the  ethics 
of  love,  and  asked  if  the  sin  is  venial  or  worse,  she  gets  a 
little  muddled.  J  Assuredly,  nothing  is  more  "untuneable 
and  harsh  "  among  the  joyous  strains  of  the  diviue  concert 
than  the  frailty  of  the  flesh :  "  truth  compels  us  to  condemn 
it";  but  is  there  any  need  to  get  huffy,  to  decline  to  see  any 
extenuating  circumstances,  because  the  spider's  web  that 
has  been  centuries  aweaving  is  rent  by  one  dab  of  the 
paw — because,  in  spite  of  all  the  cooings  and  flutings, 
no  one  has  succeeded  in  turning  men  into  big  babies 
instead  of  villains,  or  even  (I  go  this  length)  because  in  the 
heat  of  the  battle  some  women  may  have  lost  their  heads 
and  gone  over  to  the  enemy  ?  Is  the  conclusion  inevitable 
that  the  outcome  of  platonism  is  necessarily  evil — more 
evil  than  anything  else  ? 

How  stood  the  fashionable  ladies  who  rebelled  against 
platonism  ?  .  .  .  On  the  principle  that  "  the  honour  of  a 
man  and  that  of  a  woman  are  the  same,"  and  that  a 
wife,  whether  from  love  or  vengeance,  has  a  right  to  the 
same  independence  as  her  husband,  it  was  the  husbands' 
game  to  wink  at  things.  Far  from  making  an  outcry  and 
playing  the  Othello,  they  meditated  philosophically  on  their 
own  position2  and  the  virtue  of  silence,  and,  drawing  in 
their  horns  with  something  of  fatalism,  could  not  find  fault 
with  their  wives  for  "using  their  power"  as  they  themselves 
did.  It  was  rare  for  a  husband  to  kill  his  wife ;  wedlock 
had  become  a  stagnant  pool  of  mutual  indulgence,  in  which 
unlawful  love  was  but  an  incident  so  long  as  it  left  no  more 
trace  than  a  pebble  cast  into  the  surface  slime,  or  a  bird 
flitting  through  the  air.  As  to  believing  that  Lauras  or 
Beatrices  could  still  exist,  not  only  did  the  sceptics  deny  it 

1  One  of  the  ladies  replies  tranquilly  :  "  I  should  prefer  all  my  life  long 
to  see  the  bones  of  all  my  servitors  in  my  room  than  to  die  for  them :  for 
everything  can  be  amended  but  death."    (Heptameron,  Tale  32.) 

2  "  Je  le  scay  bien,  mais  point  ne  le  veux  croire, 
Car  je  perdrois  l'aise  que  j'ai  receu." 

(Clement  Marot. ) 

[I  know  it  well,  but  will  not  it  believe, 
For  I  should  lose  the  comfort  I  receive.] 
Z 


354     THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

outright,  but  they  even  declared  that  if  Laura  or  Beatrice 
were  to  revisit  the  glimpses  of  the  moon,  great  would  be 
her  disillusionment.1 

The  only  matter  that  Louise  of  Savoy  troubled  about  was 
to  keep  things  dark.5* 

Can  we  wonder  that,  in  an  atmosphere  so  saturated  with 
immorality,  many  even  of  the  best-intentioned  women 
allowed  themselves  to  drift  with  the  tide,  or  that  Salel,  the 
Attic  friend  of  Margaret,  represents  them  even  on  the  shore 
of  Acheron  as  still  enchained  to  ungovernable  love,  and 
imploring  pardon  for  their  tyrant  ? 

When  they  succumbed,  it  was  with  a  sublimity  of  passion 
which  the  world  almost  always  misconstrued.  "The  fortress  of 
the  heart,  where  honour  dwells,  was  so  battered  that  the  poor 
lady  granted  what  she  was  never  a  whit  inclined  to  refuse."8 
"  You  mean  to  say,  then,"  says  a  lady,  "  that  all  is  lawful  to 
those  that  love,  provided  no  one  knows?"  "  In  good  sooth," 
replies  the  other, "  'tis  only  fools  who  are  found  out."4  Their 
love,  fashioned  out  of  dreams,  thus  dissolves  into  reality. 
Pure  women,  platonists  armed  at  all  points,  let  themselves 
go  from  a  spirit  of  gentleness  ("for  pity  in  their  spirits 
rules"),  from  a  tenderness  of  compassion,  out  of  charity 
toward  others,  if  not  for  themselves.  They  are  almost 
martyrs  of  love  or  kindliness,  since  their  kindliness  goes 
such  lengths  as  to  be  taken  for  love,  just  as  their  love, 
reserved  as  it  is,  may  be  taken  for  kindliness.  Unlike  the 
anti-platonists,  though  they  may  perchance  be  surprised 
into  a  fault,  they  surprise  no  one,  they  commit  no  follies. 
It  is  the  fault  of  poor  human  nature  that  platonic  love  does 

1Hiitten  writes:  "What  shall  I  say  of  Samson,  who  while  all  but  in 
the  arms  of  a  woman  received  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost  ?  .  .  . 
And  of  Solomon,  who  had  300  queens  and  an  infinite  number  of  concubines, 
till  his  death,  and  who  nevertheless  in  the  eyes  of  the  divines  passes  for 
saved?  What  is  the  inference?  I  am  not  stronger  than  Solomon,  nor 
wiser,  and  one  must  sometimes  have  a  little  joy.  The  doctors  say  'tis 
necessary  to  cure  melancholy.  Well,  what  do  you  say  of  these  grave 
authors  ?  Ecclesiastes  says :  •  There  is  nothing  better  than  that  a  man 
should  rejoice  in  his  own  works.'  So  I  say  to  my  love,  with  Solomon : 
1  Thou  hast  wounded  my  heart,  my  sister,  my  spouse,  thou  hast  wounded 
my  heart  with  one  of  thy  hairs.  How  fair  is  thy  breast,  my  sister,  my 
spouse  !     How  much  better  is  thy  breast  than  wine  ! '  and  so  on. " 

2  Heplameron,  Tale  15. 

'Ibid.,  Tale  18. 

*Ibid.,  Tale  13  and  end  of  First  Day. 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  355 

not  remain  always  a  "stork  love,"1  as  Montaigne  calls  it. 
There  is  never  a  battle  but  some  dead  and  wounded  are  left 
on  the  field.  Pity  the  dead  by  all  means,  but  the  survivors 
are  already  inviting  those  who  have  never  sinned  to  cast 
the  first  stone ! 

A  woman  "so  cozened,"  concludes  Castiglione  philoso- 
phically, unquestionably  merits  such  indulgence  as  is 
accorded  to  messieurs  les  assassins.  She  was  toiling,  as 
Michelangelo  said,  "  to  lift  souls  to  perfection.  Sensuality 
slays  the  souL" 

And  hence  Margaret  of  France,  in  her  profound  yearning 
to  blot  out  and  pardon  the  sins  of  the  world,  is  her- 
self  inspired  with  a  tender,  helpful  tolerance.  Assuredly 
the  wounds  she  observes  are  deplorable,  but  they  do  not 
necessarily  point  to  absolute  frowardness  of  heart;  they 
may  result  from  a  "na'fve  folly,"  from  "the  misfortune  of 
loving  not  wisely  but  too  well " ;  in  other  words,  from  an 
over-abundance  of  natural  goodness,  the  very  consequence 
of  our  organisation.  The  perfect  being  would  clearly  be  an 
androgyne ;  but  we  are  imperfect  beings,  an  odd  mixture,, 
godlike,  and  yet  profoundly,  lamentably  human.  The 
power  of  love 

vient  de  la  divinity, 
Et  son  tourment  de  nostre  humanity.2 

We  seem  to  hear  this  spotless  woman  crying  to  God :  ■  O 
Christ,  Christ  of  the  Magdalene,  gasping  and  crucified,  how 
Thou  didst  suffer,  how  Thou  didst  love !  This  streaming 
blood,  these  wounds  gaping  eternally, — these  are  the  handi- 
work of  the  hate  of  men,  whom  Thou  didst  bid  to  love  one 
another  with  a  pure  heart.  Thou  wilt  not  pardon  their 
hate  !  Thou  wilt  not  pardon  their  fierce  lust  of  wealth,  nor 
their  pride  and  naughtiness  of  heart,  nor  their  wild  anger, 
nor  their  shameful  sloth  of  soul.  Thou  wilt  pardon  nothing 
but  the  error  of  love,  the  error  of  a  moment,  since  this  is 
but  the  overflow  of  the  goodness  Thyself  hast  given,  the 
wofulness  of  too  great  love  ! " 

1  [Referring  to  the  fable  of  the  Stork  and  the  Fox,  versified  later  by  La 
Fontaine.     "  The  stork  with  his  long  neck  could  not  pick  up  a  bit."] 

2  Comes  from  divinity, 
And  its  torment  from  our  humanity. 


356       THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 


2.   THE  ENNOBLEMENT  OF  VICE. 

The  second  moral  effect  of  the  theory  of  beauty  and  love 
was  still  more  pertinent  than  the  first.  It  consisted  in  an 
extraordinary  levelling  up  of  purely  terrestrial  and  unlawful 
loves.  From  the  principle,  with  which  we  are  already 
acquainted,  that  the  virginity  of  the  heart  survives  the 
professional  ordeals  in  which  the  heart  has  no  concern, 
we  shall  find  that  moral  deductions  were  drawn,  in  Italy 
and  even  in  France,  so  important  that  we  cannot  pass  them 
by  in  silence. 

In  Italy,  among  the  women  whose  trade  was  pleasure, 
there  was  formed  an  aristocracy  so  real  that  some  of  them 
presided  over  salons,  were  part  and  parcel  of  the  court 
world,  and  truly  merited  the  name  of  "  courtesans."  Their 
bearing  was  irreproachable,  their  distinction  extreme ;  we 
are  bound  to  say,  indeed,  that,  apart  from  their  origin,  they 
were  absolutely  indistinguishable  from  virtuous  women — 
except  that  perhaps  their  manners  were  a  trifle  more 
correct. 

Their  high  influence  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  in  the 
official  world  of  Rome  there  was  a  plentiful  lack  of  women. 
Etiquette  required  that  none  but  birds  of  passage  should  be 
seen  at  court,  a  restriction  which  gave  cruel  but  entirely 
honourable  pain  to  the  heart  of  more  than  one  platonic 
prelate.  It  was  believed  for  a  moment  that  the  half-sister 
of  Leo  X.,  Philiberta  of  Savoy,  was  about  to  take  up  her 
abode  at  the  Vatican :  "  God  be  praised ! "  cried  Bibbiena 
exultantly,  "  all  we  lack  is  a  court  with  women ! "  This 
happiness  was  not  realised ;  women  continued  to  be  con- 
spicuous by  their  absence.  We  see  how  it  was  that,  in 
the  supreme  sanctuary  of  human  glory,  in  the  Eternal 
City  that  served  as  beacon  to  the  world,  the  Ninons  de 
l'Euclos,1  for  want  of  better  women,  fulfilled  in  their  own 
way  a  singular  apostolic  mission  by  playing  the  part  of 
court  ladies,  and  by  magnificently  entertaining  the  pick  of 
poets,  savants,  artists,  prelates  and  diplomatists,  at  a  period 

1  [Ninon  was  the  celebrated  courtesan  who,  without  any  great  beauty, 
retained  her  ascendancy  over  men  through  a  long  life  (1616-1706).  She  was 
well-born,  wealthy  and  witty,  and  capricious  in  the  bestowal  of  her  favours. 
She  is  the  original  of  Clarisse  in  Mile  de  Scudery's  interminable  romance 
Cldxt.  Herself  a  writer  and  a  lover  of  literature,  she  left  Voltaire  2000 
francs  to  buy  books.] 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  357 

when  every  man  plumed  himself  on  bearing  one  of  those 
labels  and  on  sporting  it  about  some  petticoat. 

Bewitching  pictures  of  the  receptions  of  these  ladies  have 
been  bequeathed  to  us ;  many  a  poet  who  knew  the  world 
chiefly  in  this  quarter  has  vaunted  with  enthusiasm  the 
aroma  of  grace  pervading  their  noble  salons,  the  honour  of 
admission  to  them,  the  relations  established  there,  the 
superb  fetes  which  consecrated  their  charm  and  set  a  seal 
upon  the  connection.  This  was  no  new  thing;  Socrates 
and  Pliny  testify  how  keenly  the  society  of  ancient  Greece 
and  Rome  had  felt  the  need  of  guidance  by  women  more 
deeply  experienced  in  life  and  more  naturally  active  than 
high-born  ladies  are  likely  to  be.  To  name  these  ladies 
Ninons  de  l'Enclos,  however,  would  be  to  give  a  very  imper- 
fect and  mean  idea  of  them,  for  their  influence  was  at  once 
moral  and  intellectual.  Doubtless  they  could  pretend  to  no 
virginity  but  that  of  the  heart,  but  since  that  was  the 
better  part,  they  honoured  pure  love  quite  as  conscientiously, 
if  not  more  than  others  did.  Energy  of  a  very  special 
and  sincere  kind  impelled  them  to  react  strongly  against 
the  scorn  of  a  world  they  had  an  equal  right  to  scorn ;  and 
further,  they  felt  the  necessity  of  stopping  their  ears  if  they 
were  to  save  themselves  from  blank  hopelessness,  and  of 
setting  up  noble  illusions  about  themselves. 

Several  of  them  were  genuine  patricians,  whose  only 
possible  reproach  was  a  tincture  of  pride.  One  would 
flaunt  her  descent,  which  she  possibly  traced  back  to  the 
Colonna  or  even  the  Massimo l ;  another  would  modestly 
sign  herself  "  Roman  patrician."  The  entre'e  to  their  salons 
was  particularly  difficult ;  some  of  them  imposed  somewhat 
rigorous  conditions,  insisting  for  instance  that  a  man  should 
mount  guard  for  two  months  with  the  Swiss  at  the  palace 
gate,  or  should  pay  his  devoir  on  his  knees.  The  style  of 
their  houses  and  appointments  left  nothing  to  be  desired ; 
they  maintained  an  extreme  decorum.  It  is  not  for  us  to  boast 
of  their  virtue :  their  talent  consisted  in  being  as  virtuous 
as  possible  and  getting  rich  more  particularly  by  way  of 
legacies ;  it  would  have  been  a  great  mistake  to  deal  with 
them  cavalierly.  Tullia  d'Aragona,  who  thoughtlessly 
allowed  some  rather  broad  pasquinades  to  be  addressed  to  her, 

1[An   ancient  princely  family  of  Rome  which   claimed  descent  from 
Fabius  Maxim  us  the  Dictator.] 


358      THE   WOMEN  OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

was  unfortunate  enough,  on  a  visit  with  which  she  honoured 
the  court  of  Ferrara,  to  turn  all  the  gentlemen's  heads.  But 
the  most  diverse  ordeals  found  her  inflexible ;  she  rejected 
with  indignation  the  miserable  offer  of  a  golden  necklace 
worth  three  hundred  crowns.  The  daughter  of  another  of 
these  ladies  had  been  so  excellently  brought  up  that  she  has  a 
place  among  the  martyrs  of  virtue  and  patriotism ;  she  slew 
herself  to  escape  the  importunities  of  the  governor  of  Sienna. 

They  were  queens  of  elegance,  and  never  a  brunette 
among  them.  At  their  houses  people  discoursed  most 
excellent  music.  They  were  great  dancers.  They  were  the 
happy  owners  of  fine  jewels,  fine  pictures,  fine  statuary ;  on 
their  tables  might  be  seen  the  newest  books,  choice  editions, 
sometimes  adorned  with  a  manuscript  dedication  in  verse. 
They  knew  Greek  and  Latin  ;  they  corresponded  with  their 
absent  friends  in  gracious  and  affectionate  letters,  Ciceronian 
in  style,  and  with  no  lack  of  wit.  In  conversation 
it  required  very  little  pressure  to  tap  a  bountiful  spring 
of  elegant  extracts  from  the  classics — most  often  got  second- 
hand from  Petrarch  or  Boccaccio — or  even,  on  occasion,  a 
learned  disquisition  on  Roman  archaeology.  Sometimes 
they  shot  out  a  phrase  in  the  high  pietistic  fashion  of  the 
day.  What  lady  of  recognised  position  could  have  written 
more  charming  sonnets  than  Imperia  or  Veronica  Franco  ? 

They  excelled  in  keeping  wit  in  play  :  Aretino  confesses 
that,  without  an  incentive  of  this  sort,  he  would  have  been 
good  for  nothing.  Occasionally  some  poor  devil  was 
graciously  permitted  to  give  a  taste  of  his  quality,  but, 
as  a  rule,  the  mistress  of  the  house  preferred  to  inspire 
men  who  had  well-lined  purses.  Yes,  it  was  a  grave 
and  distinguished  society,  and  if  sometimes  the  conversation 
touched  on  subjects  but  indifferently  mystical,  what  immac- 
ulate drawing-room  but  was  open  to  the  same  reproach  ? 

On  saints'  days  these  ladies  went  to  pay  their  devotions  at 
the  neighbouring  basilica,  and  if  they  were  not  very  devout 
they  were  at  any  rate  beautifully  dressed.  Their  accus- 
tomed air  of  good  breeding  and  conscious  dignity,  which 
drove  many  ladies  to  despair,  gave  them  genuine  rank,  and 
made  them  the  indispensable  ornaments  of  important 
festivities.  Thus  several  of  them  lent  lustre  to  the 
magnificent  reception  given  in  1513  by  the  Cardinal  of 
Mantua  to  young  Federico  Gonzaga,  then  in  his  fourteenth 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  359 

year,  as  he  passed  through  on  the  way  to  Rome.  In 
truth,  there  were  some  who  behaved  exactly  like  high- 
born dames,  and  were  pre-eminent  in  all  deeds  of  devotion, 
whole-hearted  love,  and  even  disinterestedness.  Poets 
innumerable  have  vouched  for  their  virtue.  Vittoria 
Colonna  and  Michelangelo  dedicated  sonnets  to  them. 

Not  infrequently  they  ended  their  days  in  the  odour 
of  piety,  and  were  buried  in  the  churches 1 ;  to  this  day 
prayers  are  offered  in  the  shadow  of  their  tombs.  Michel- 
angelo wrote  an  epitaph  for  one  of  them.  Others  prosaically 
married  men  of  the  world,  and  these  ladies,  as  a  rule,  took 
rather  a  superior  pride  in  their  virtue  and  their  coat-of-arms. 
A  clever  woman  of  the  time  philosophically  hit  off  the 
subject :  "  Life  is  a  comedy  :  so  long  as  the  last  act  is 
successful,  the  whole  piece  is  fine." 

Nevertheless  these  interesting  creatures  necessarily  had 
their  detractors.  They  have  been  accused  of  trickery  and 
deception.  With  all  allowance  for  the  prejudice  of  their 
enemies,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  eccentricities  here  and 
there  gave  a  handle  to  the  slanderers.  The  lady,  for 
instance,  who  wore  slippers  covered  with  diamonds,  and 
made  men  kiss  her  feet  (like  the  pope),  alleging  that 
her  foot  too  was  beautiful  enough  to  merit  adoration, 
was  considered  to  have  overstepped  the  bounds.  But  with 
the  general  public,  and  even  with  connoisseurs,  such  dainty 
exactions  did  not  produce  the  same  astonishment  that  they 
would  produce  to-day.  The  religion  of  beauty  touched 
such  deep  chords  that  the  beautiful  appeared  always  beautiful 
under  all  forms,  so  much  so  that  in  certain  Italian  collections 
of  "  Lives  of  illustrious  women,"  saints  and  courtesans  stand 
cheek  by  jowL 

Men  professed  for  these  ladies  the  same  veneration  and 
idolatrous  respect  as  for  a  princess ;  they  plied  them  with 
the  same  sighs,  the  same  verses,  the  same  little  tendernesses. 
The  game  cost  a  little  dearer,  but  in  reality  they  were  not 
unwilling  to  regard  a  courtesan's  drawing-room  as   more 

1  Panormita,  who  died  in  1471,  had  already  employed  his  muse  in  lament- 
ing departed  courtesans  ;  for  example  : 

Hoc  jacet  ingenuae  formae  Catharina  sepulcro  ; 
Grata  fuit  multis  scita  paella  procis,  etc. 

[In  this  tomb  lies  Catharine  of  noble  beauty  :  pleasing  was  the  fair  girl 
to  many  a  wooer]. 


3G0      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

moral  than  certain  reputable  drawing-rooms,  since  a  man 
was  not  likely  to  meet  a  ridiculous  husband  there,  or 
embarrassing  young  cousins  of  both  sexes,  or  certain 
fashionable  girls  whose  tongues  had  a  tang.  And  it  was 
much  less  compromising. 

Was  there  a  moral  advantage  in  elevating  what  had 
till  then  been  so  degraded  ?  For  a  long  time  it  was 
sincerely  believed  there  was,  and  this  belief  was  held 
almost  throughout  Italy.  On  this  point  it  is  sufficient  to 
read  a  very  curious  letter  addressed  by  some  unknown 
person,  concealing  himself  under  the  pseudonym  "  Apollo," 
to  the  witty  and  eminently  virtuous  Isabella  d'Este.  It 
is  dated  Ferrara,  June  13,  1537,  and  refers  to  a  visit  then 
being  paid  to  the  city  by  Tullia  d'Aragona.  It  runs: 
"  There  has  just  arrived  here  a  very  pretty  lady,  so  staid  in 
deportment,  so  fascinating  in  manner,  that  we  cannot  help 
finding  in  her  something  truly  divine.  She  sings  all 
sorts  of  airs  and  motets  at  sight ;  her  conversation  has 
matchless  charm;  she  knows  everything,  and  there  is 
nothing  you  cannot  talk  to  her  about.  There  is  no  one 
here  to  hold  a  candle  to  her,  not  even  the  Marchioness 
of  Pescara."  An  ambassador  exceeded  even  these  rhap- 
sodies, and  wrote  gravely  to  his  government  that  he  was 
composing  his  despatches  under  the  eye  of  this  pretty 
woman,  who  assisted  him  with  her  advice. 

Tullia  d'Aragona,  who  was,  we  may  remark,  very  proud 
of  the  noble  blood  in  her  veins,  thus  played  Egeria  to  the 
most  exalted  personages,  and  they  had  no  hesitation  in 
comparing  her  to  a  mother  of  the  church  like  Vittoria 
Colonna,  or  in  placing  her  even  higher.  She  justified  this 
enthusiasm,  not  only  by  her  physical  beauty  and  her  wit, 
but  by  real  moral  qualities.  She  proved  that  the  spirit  of 
the  beautiful  elevates  the  basest  things,  and  if  she  did  not 
turn  Trappist,  if  she  continued  to  live  the  life  she  was  born 
to,  she  brought  to  it  a  contempt  of  money  which  was  itself 
a  purifying  virtue.  This  admirable  creature,  after  holding 
all  Italy  spellbound  by  the  charm  of  her  velvety  eyes,  died 
in  destitution ;  she  gave  instructions  that  she  should  be 
buried  in  the  quietest  way  beside  her  poor  mother  in  the 
church  of  Sant  Agostino,  where  she  had  endowed  masses ; 
her  belongings  had  to  be  sold  by  auction,  and  they  realised 
twelve  crowns  and  a  half. 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  361 

Imperia  attained  even  a  higher  place  than  Tullia,  and  we 
are  compelled  to  believe  that  the  aegis  of  virtue,  like 
charity,  can  cover  a  multitude  of  sins,  since  we  find  Sadoleto, 
the  type  of  sincere  piety,  singing  the  praises  of  this  amiable 
woman,  and  Raphael  setting  her,  so  it  is  said,  at  the  foot  of 
his  Parnassus  in  the  apartments  of  Julius  II. 

We  do  not  know  (and  it  is  almost  better  so)  what  Imperia 
had  done  to  excite  so  general  an  enthusiasm :  she  died  at 
twenty-six  !  All  that  we  know  is  that  August  15,  1511,  the 
day  of  her  death,  was  observed  at  Rome  as  a  day  of  public 
mourning.  On  her  tomb  was  engraved  an  epitaph  in  the 
purest  lapidary  style.  The  poets,  maybe  with  a  very 
subtle  irony,  lauded  her  to  the  skies  as  a  new  goddess  of 
Latium:  we  hardly  need  to  repeat  these  fine  phrases. 
"  Our  fathers  mourned  the  Empire  (Imperium) ;  we  mourn 
Imperia.  They  had  lost  the  world :  we  have  lost  our  hearts, 
our  very  selves."  "The  whole  city  was  moved  when  this 
young  deity  was  snatched  away  on  Tiber  banks,"  exclaims 
Vitalis — "the  whole  city,  even  the  old  pagan  walls,  even 
the  fasti  of  the  consuls  ! "  "  No  longer  is  she  beneath  this 
marble,"  cries  Silvanus ;  "  henceforth  she  holds  her  place 
among  the  constellations,  she  will  guide  our  fleets."  But 
Silvanus  becomes  a  little  mixed  in  his  mythology,  and  in 
connection  with  the  new  star  unaccountably  couples  the 
names  of  Julius  II.  and  Jupiter. 

For  all  this  glory  and  honour,  Imperia  and  her  kind 
inevitably  became  rather  burdensome,  and  the  most  aesthetic 
of  the  popes,  Leo  X.,  struck  them  a  fatal  blow  when  he 
expelled  them  from  Rome  in  1520.  They  took  refuge  at 
Venice,  despite  the  heroic  opposition  of  the  senate. 

But  at  Venice  they  lost  all  their  peculiar  charm : 
Venice,  the  metropolis  of  pleasure,  "the  foam  of  the  sea," 
set  its  stamp  upon  them.  Venice  was  the  earthly  paradise 
of  matter-of-fact  folk  like  Brantome  and  Aretino.  The 
latter  wrote  to  an  amiable  lady  :  "  You  cannot  picture  these 
water-parties  in  the  open  air,  these  coaching  expeditions  on 
terra  jirma,  these  secluded  groves,  these  banquets,  these 
unaccustomed  consolations.  .  .  .  From  your  windows  you 
will  have  a  panorama  of  musicians,  singers  and  buffoons," 
a  tempest  of  pleasure.  "  You  would  fancy  yourself  a  queen." 
But  at  Venice  such  queens  did  not  govern,  as  at  Rome  ■ 
men  added  them  to  their  collection,  that  was  all 


362      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Thus  disappeared  one  of  the  most  striking  curiosities  of 
the  platonist  society, — the  one  which  has  left  the  most 
vivid  memories.  It  was  only  possible  under  the  caressing 
warmth  of  the  Roman  sky. 

Leo's  decree  evoked  loud  cries  of  distress,  and  the  loudest 
of  all  came  from  the  French,  who,  though  they  had  never 
understood  this  art  of  harlotry  and  had  made  great  fun 
of  it,  thought  it  a  capital  thing  all  the  same.  Rome,  they 
as  good  as  said,  was  no  longer  Rome :  "  How  doleful 
the  Jubilee  will  be ! "  cries  a  pilgrim :  "  what  shall  I  do  in 
Rome  now  ? "  Du  Bellay,  while  a  melancholy  guest  of  the 
gloom-beclouded  city,  apostrophised  this  new  ruin  in  well- 
known  verses.  (0  Rome,  sad,  tender  Rome,  to  whom  every 
passing  generation  must  needs  bequeath  a  new  triumphal 
arch,  new  catacombs !)  Many  years  later,  distinguished 
travellers  like  Henri  III.  and  Montaigne  did  their  best  to 
hunt  up  the  last  of  the  courtesans. 

We  cannot  but  confess  that  the  attempt  to  rehabilitate 
the  demi-monde  and  to  employ  it  in  the  heavenward  voyage 
strikes  us  as  extremely  venturesome ;  the  younger  Dumas, 
like  a  true  Frenchman,  was  not  bold  enough  to  persevere. 
Our  ancestors  felt  the  same  qualms :  unhappily,  it  was  not 
from  virtuous  scruples.  They  recognised  the  work  accom- 
plished by  platonism,  so  bent  were  they  on  transfiguring 
love  through  coquetry,1  and  so  hopeful,  in  the  interests  of 
humanity,  of  rendering  virtuous  women  more  come-at-able. 
But  when  it  was  suggested  to  them,  as  necessary  to  complete 
their  work,  that  they  should  render  come-at-able  women 
more  virtuous,  they  were  steadfast  as  rock. 

1  Women  M  may  accept  of  our  service  unto  a  certain  measure,  and  make 
us  honestly  perceive  how  they  disdain  us  not ;  for  the  law  which  enjoiueth 
them  to  abhor  us,  because  we  adore  them,  and  to  hate  us  forasmuch  as  we 
love  them,  is  doubtless  very  cruel.  ...  A  queen  of  our  time  said  wittily 
that  to  refuse  men's  kind  summons  is  a  testimony  of  much  weakness,  and 
an  accusing  of  one's  own  facility,  and  that  an  unattempted  lady  could  not 
vaunt  of  her  chastity.  ...  If  rareness  be  in  any  thing  worthy  estimation, 
it  ought  to  be  in  this."  And  again:  "In  my  time,  the  pleasure  of 
reporting  and  blabbing  what  one  hath  done  (a  pleasure  not  much  short  of 
the  act  itself  in  sweetness)  was  only  allowed  to  such  as  had  some  assured, 
trusty  and  singular  friend;  whereas  nowadays  the  ordinary  entertainments 
and  familiar  discourses  of  meetings  and  at  tables  are  the  boastings  of 
favours  received,  graces  obtained,  and  secret  liberalities  of  ladies.  Verily 
it  is  too  great  an  abjection  and  argueth  a  baseness  of  heart,  so  fiercely  to 
suffer  those  tender,  dainty,  delicious  joys  to.be  persecuted,  pelted  and 
foraged  by  persons  so  ungrateful,  so  indiscreet,  and  so  giddy-headed." 
(Montaigne,  Bk.  Ill  ,  cap.  v.) 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  363 

They  discovered  another  way  of  giving  an  aristocratic 
stamp  to  things  that  could  not  be  spiritualised.  We  are 
bound  to  touch  upon  it,  because  this  also  throws  back  a 
vague  reflexion  of  platonism ;  besides,  in  approaching  these 
delicate  problems  in  morality,  which  it  is  so  expedient  to 
look  at  dispassionately,  we  have  no  intention  of  dedicating 
our  work  to  girls. 

It  was  sought  to  blend  the  idea  of  an  immaterial  union  of 
hearts — an  idea  borrowed  from  platonism,  and  one  whose 
beauty  and  importance  were  not  disputed — with  the  other 
idea  that  such  a  compact  must  necessarily  be  sealed  by  an 
absolute  and  unreserved  intimacy,  or  it  would  remain 
chimerical  and  oppressive.  This  idea  the  French  could 
not  part  with ;  and  consequently  there  arose  the  notion  of 
what  may  be  called  a  second  marriage,  supplementary 
to  the  authorised  marriage — a  union  de  facto,  recognised, 
acknowledged,  declared,  and  so  highly  honoured  that  one 
would  be  tempted  to  call  it  an  eighth  sacrament.  Similar 
unions,  recognised  by  the  world,  were  still  known  at  the 
end  of  the  18th  century,  and  even  under  the  Restoration 
during  the  early  years  of  the  19th,  having  survived  the 
worst  trials  of  the  Revolution,  the  Emigration,  penury, 
and  exile,  to  say  nothing  of  the  still  more  ruthless  test  of 
time. 

This  custom  of  giving  publicity  to  secret  unions  was  not 
a  direct  outgrowth  of  platonism ;  yet  platonist  women  looked 
on  it  by  no  means  unfavourably.  In  the  first  place,  they 
thought  it  rather  lucky  that  their  husbands,  enjoying  an 
irregularity  in  some  sort  regularised,  more  highly  respected 
their  wives'  dignity,  quiet  and  health.1  Secondly,  we  have 
already  shown  how  little  platonism  there  was  in  morals 
under  Francis  I.,  and  what  unbridled  licence  reigned  at 
court.  Melin  de  Saint-Gelais  portrays  the  king  as  a 
cock  in  a  hen-run — or  as  a  sun  in  a  firmament  of  stars, 
amid  Canaples,  star  of  the  morning ;  the  lovely  Saint-Paul, 
star  of  evening ;  Diana,  the  crescent-moon ;  and  many  other 
stellar  beauties  eager  to  shine — Helly,  Rieux,  Tallard, 
Lestrange — who,  if  their  names  were  not  mentioned,  "would 
have  thought  it  strange." 

'Vice  was  incredibly  base  and  ignoble  at  the  courts  of  Charles  VIII. 
and  Louis  XII.  Ragged  and  loathsome  wretches  went  everywhere  in  the 
train  of  the  court,  to  whom  the  princes  gave  alms  on  fete  days. 


364      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Francis  I.  said  plainly  that  a  man  without  a  mistress  was 
only  a  nincompoop.  In  that  case  was  it  not  a  mark  of 
progress  to  arrive  at  the  institution  of  a  regular  mistress, 
recognised  and  with  no  rivals  ?  Margaret  of  France  would 
have  been  only  too  glad  to  see  her  brother  fix  his  affections 
prudently  on  some  eminent  lady,  who  would  rank  next  the 
queen  and  might  be  called  the  queen  and  "mirror  of  all 
propriety."  That  explains,  no  doubt,  the  affectionate,  obse- 
quious, humble  welcome  she  gave  to  the  duchess  d'Etampes, 
whose  reign  seemed  for  a  moment  likely  to  be  lasting.  She 
wrote  for  this  noble  lady  the  Cocke  or  De'bat  d 'Amour,  a 
little  treatise  intended  to  prove  that,  apart  from  pure 
platonism,  there  can  still  exist  a  laudable  love ;  and  in  the 
presentation  copy  Margaret,  the  kiDg's  sister,  had  herself 
represented,  in  complete  black,  before  the  queen  of  the  day 
in  all  the  brilliance  of  her  beauty  and  her  jewels,  and 
saying  to  her:  "Plus  vous  que  moy";  in  other  words, 
"  You  are  more  than  I." 

With  a  like  feeling  of  feminine  delicacy,  perhaps  some- 
what exaggerated,  Veronica  Gambara,  who  was  probably 
virtuous  and  quite  certainly  platonic,  went  into  raptures 
over  the  good  fortune  of  the  "siren"  who  succeeded  in 
holding  for  some  time  the  volatile  heart  of  Aretino ;  the 
words  of  Laura  and  Beatrice  rose  instantly  to  her  lips,  as  if 
the  ideal  were  on  the  point  of  attainment. 

Henri  II.  showed  himself  a  platonist  in  this  sense ;  his 
double  establishment  did  not  constitute  an  infidelity.  He  was 
faithful  to  two  wives,  one  official,  responsible  for  perpetuat- 
ing his  dynasty  and  acting  for  him  in  affairs,  after  the  old 
tradition ;  the  other  personal,  to  satisfy  his  heart  as  a  man. 

Diana  of  Poitiers,  it  must  be  admitted,  besides  her  beauty 
which  long  retained  its  ripeness,  had  all  the  qualities  for 
beguiling  and  captivating  a  lofty  heart — birth  almost  as 
good  as  the  queen's  (who  was  only  a  Medici),  wit,  warm- 
heartedness, self-devotion.  She  has  herself  explained,  in 
excellent  verse,  how  her  position,  false  as  it  seems  to  us, 
was  born  of  a  genuine  passion.  One  fine  morning,  she  tells 
us,  a  young  Cupid  in  all  his  fresh,  light-footed,  bashful 
youth  came  roaming  in  her  neighbourhood,  filling  her 
mantle  with  marjoram  and  jonquilles,  casting  a  spell  upon 
her.  She  resisted,  shutting  eyes  and  ears  against  him,  though 
she  felt  her  heart  melting ;  she  would  listen  to  no  promises, 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  365 

no  oaths.  He  held  out  to  her  a  wonderful  laurel  wreath,  a 
queen's  crown.  "  No,"  she  replied,  *.  better  far  be  good  than 
a  queen,"  and  yet  she  felt  herself  "  thrilling  and  trembling." 

Et  comprendrez  sans  peine 
Duquel  matin  je  pretends  reparler.1 

Love  did  not  speak  her  false  :  he  offered  her  a  kingdom,  a 
great  part  to  play,and  kept  hisword,  as  the  walls  of  the  Louvre 
testify.  To  all  her  contemporaries  the  position  of  Diana 
appeared  magnificent,  divine.  Du  Bellay  has  sung  of  it  as  the 
most  beautiful  of  marriages,  the  marriage  of  true  minds  : 

Dieu  vous  a  fait  entre  nous 
Comme  un  miracle  apparoistre, 
Afin  que  de  ce  grand  Boy, 
D'une  inviolable  for, 
Vous  peussiez  posseder  l'ame, 
Et  que  son  affection, 
Par  vostre  perfection, 
Brulast  d'une  sainte  flamme. 
Les  Roys  monstrent  aux  humains 
De  Dieu  l'exemple  et  l'image.2 

To  the  French,  this  was  the  perfect  type  of  platonism,  at 
once  practical  and  sacred. 

Vous  avez  acquis  le  cceur  de  toute  la  France.3 

And  Ronsard  is  not  less  explicit : 

Seray-je  seul,  vivant  en  France  de  vostre  age, 
Sans  chanter  vostre  nom,  si  craint  et  si  puissant  ? 
Diray-je  point  l'honneur  de  vostre  beau  croissant  ? 
Feray-je  point  pour  vous  quelque  immortel  ouvrage  ?  * 

1  [Nor  will  you  find  it  hard  to  tell 

On  what  fair  morning  this  befell.] 
*[God  hath  sent  you  to  this  place 
Like  some  miracle  of  grace, 
That  you  may  both  have  and  hold 
Our  great  sovreign's  heart  of  gold, 
And  that  like  a  holy  fire, 
Purified  in  all  desire 
His  affection  light  may  shed, 
By  your  true  perfections  fed. 
Kings  to  mortal  men  below 
God's  own  form  and  image  show.] 
'[And  you  have  won  the  whole  great  heart  of  France.] 
4  [Shall  I  alone  of  all  this  age  in  France 

Forbear  to  sing  thy  dread  and  puissant  name, 
Nor  tell  the  glory  of  thy  crescent  flame, 
Nor  by  some  deathless  rime  thy  praise  enhance  ?] 


366      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

In  spite  of  all  these  dithyrambs,  it  is  very  clear  that  the 
platonism  of  Diana  of  Poitiers  is  a  sign  of  decadence.  It 
was  the  ideal  of  platonist  women  to  be  loved  for  their  soul ; 
men's  ideal  being  the  opposite,  there  had  been  a  com- 
promise.1 

The  compromise,  indeed,  was  greater  than  they  were 
willing  to  admit,  even  in  Italy,  and  in  the  purest  centres  of 
platonism.  Our  readers  are  already  acquainted  with  the 
charming  Bembo,  the  quintessence  of  platonism,  the  admir- 
able chiseller  of  phrases,  the  secretary  of  Leo  X.,  the  friend 
of  everything  beautiful,  noble  and  aesthetic,  the  magnificent 
collector,  the  apostle  of  Plato  and  Petrarch,  of  Boccaccio 
and  Dante,  the  idol  of  the  ladies,  in  short,  one  of  the  men 
who  clung  to  the  skirts  of  princesses,  parading  their  ever- 
lasting sentimentalities  under  the  most  perfect,  exquisite, 
elevated  form.  We  have  a  moving  letter  of  his.  Among 
that  numerous  bevy  of  princesses  who  nourished  him  on 
ethereal  glances  from  their  bright  eyes,  there  was  one  he 
loved,  the  Morosina,  a  pure  and  charming  woman,  to  whom, 
as  Monsignor  Beccadelli  has  said,  "  he  had  the  good  sense  to 
devote  himself," 2  and  who  had  given  him,  in  the  most 
common,  everyday  fashion,  a  goodly  number  of  children. 
He  lost  her.  The  unhappy  man  was  stricken  to  the  core  ; 
his  whole  being  bled.  What  a  state  in  which  to  find  the 
divine  Bembo,  the  prophet  of  the  celestial  felicities !  Death 
has  plunged  a  knife  into  his  heart.  Love — yes,  he  too  had 
loved.  He  unbosoms  himself  to  one  of  his  friends,  Gabriele 
Trifon.  We  were  struck  with  surprise  when  we  first  came 
upon  the  letter ;  it  was  the  intimate  revelation  of  a  soul ; 
a  Bembo  of  real  flesh  and  blood,  grief-stricken,  palpitating. 
"  You,"  he  writes,  "  have  softened  the  anguish  which  over- 
whelms me,  in  speaking  to  me  as  a  man,  not  as  a  philo- 
sopher platonic  and  divine." 

He  adds  that  he  has  sought  to  reason  with  himself,  to 
preach  himself  lessons  of  wisdom,  to  find  relief  in  his  passion 
for  work ;  but  the  most  delightful  book  slips  from  his  hand. 
Between  the  book  and  his  eyes  the  sweet  image  re-appears 

1  Some  historians  have  maintained  that  the  love  of  Henri  II.  for  Diana 
was  purely  platonic. 

2  As  a  prelate  and  an  aspirant  to  the  purple  Bembo  was  tied  to  celibacy  ; 
but  he  was  only  in  the  lower  ranks  of  the  clergy  so  far  as  actual  ordert 
were  concerned. 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  367 

to  him  in  a  mist  of  tears ;  and  as  he  makes  this  confession, 
tears  gush  out  afresh  and  soil  the  paper,  his  heart  is  stripped 
bare  ;  the  whole  man  is  before  us.  "I  have  lost  the  dearest 
heart  in  the  world,  a  heart  which  tenderly  watched  over 
my  life,  which  loved  it  and  sustained  it  neglectful  of  its  own  ; 
a  heart  so  much  the  master  of  itself,  so  disdainful  of  vain 
embellishments  and  adorarnents,  of  silk  and  gold,  of  jewels 
and  treasures  of  price,  that  it  was  content  with  the  single  and 
(so  she  assured  me)  supreme  joy  of  the  love  I  bore  it.  This 
heart,  moreover,  had  for  vesture  the  softest,  gracefulest, 
daintiest  of  limbs;  it  had  at  its  service  pleasant  features, 
and  the  sweetest,  most  graciously  endowed  form  that  I 
have  ever  met  in  this  country.  I  cannot  forbear  lamenting, 
I  cannot  but  curse  the  stars  that  have  deprived  us  of  en- 
joying each  other  in  so  innocent  a  life." 

What  a  singular  underside  of  platonism !  What  a  warmth 
of  grief!  Where  are  all  the  platonic  paraphernalia — the 
beautiful  ladies  all  smiles  and  ice,  the  careless  disdain  of 
physical  beauty,  the  adoration  of  social  life,  the  horror  of 
solitude  ?  Where  are  the  many-faceted  phrases,  the  philo- 
sophic dissertations  ?  Bembo  has  turned  pious  like  all  the 
unhappy ;  he  will  not  accuse  Providence  unjustly ;  though 
it  has  snatched  happiness  from  him,  he  gives  thanks  for  the 
happiness  enjoyed.  But  sentiments  are  not  snapped  in  a 
moment — sentiments  "which  with  time  have  rooted  them- 
selves so  deeply  in  our  humanity  that  'twould  seem 
impossible  to  eradicate  them."  He  writes,  effusively,  thanking 
the  friend  whom  he  knew  to  have  been  bound  by  genuine 
friendship  "  to  this  beautiful  and  precious  lady."  He  speaks 
of  the  children ;  he  will  care  for  them,  since  he  is  their  father, 
and  because  ere  she  died  the  Morosina,  having  fulfilled  her 
religious  duties,  had  faintly  whispered  these  words,  which 
pierced  his  soul  like  a  hot  iron :  "  *  I  commend  our  sons  to 
you,  and  beseech  you  to  have  care  of  them,  both  for  my  sake 
and  for  yours.  Be  sure  they  are  your  own,  for  I  have  never 
done  you  wrong ;  that  is  why  I  could  take  our  Lord's  body 
just  now  with  soul  at  peace.'  Then  after  a  long  pause  she 
added :  '  Eest  with  God,'  and  a  few  minutes  afterwards 
closed  her  eyes  for  ever,  those  eyes  which  had  been  the  clear- 
shining  faithful  stars  of  my  weary  pilgrimage  through  life." 

Ah,  these  tears  !  They  had  hearts,  then,  these  fashionable 
platonists.    Never  in  any  of  his  fine  discourses  has  Bembo 


368      THE   WOMEN  OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

touched  us,  nor  even  (if  we  may  say  so)  rejoiced  us  as  by 
this  simple  stifled  cry,  these  tears  of  solitude.  He  is  prone 
upon  the  earth,  having  lost  the  wings  that  bore  him  on  from 
flower  to  flower.  .  .  .  Four  years  after  the  death  of  the 
Morosina,  we  find  that,  despite  his  good  resolutions  and  the 
counsels  of  his  friends,  he  is  as  profoundly  crushed  as  on  the 
first  day.  He  seeks  consolation  from  poetry ;  he  has  begun 
a  canzone  on  the  death  of  his  "  fair  and  good  Morosina  " ;  he 
has  finished  the  first  strophe  and  sketched  out  the  second, 
and  he  sends  these  still  formless  attempts  to  his  intimates,  to 
show  them  all  that  his  feeble  faltering  hand  can  accomplish. 


To  sum  up,  the  great  moral  movement  of  platonism 
resulted  in  a  wide  dissemination  of  sensibility,  and  a  general 
softening — a  softening  of  virtue  and  vice,  of  women  and 
men.  This  was  no  small  thing;  there  is  certainly  an 
advantage  in  cutting  the  claws  of  men  but  scantly  idyllic, 
and  in  doing  nothing  rather  than  in  doing  ill. 

This  softening  was  often  only  external,  and  not  without 
an  admixture  of  hypocrisy.  But  why  deplore  it?  For  men  to 
appear  worse  than  they  are  is  no  proof  that  they  are  better. 
Men  showed  signs  of  sensibility,  even  though  they  knew 
little  of  love.  Under  a  mask  of  amiability  and  tenderness 
their  egotism  remained  intact ;  they  talked  of  contemplation 
of  devotion,  of  the  worship  beauty  required, — without  con- 
viction, it  may  be ;  but  then  they  might  have  employed  their 
time  worse,  and  they  unconsciously  contributed  to  spread 
salutary  ideas.  One  of  those  ridiculous  creatures  who  spent 
their  lives  in  haunting  their  idols  like  a  shadow,  perceived 
with  horror  that  on  entering  a  church  his  lady  refused  alms 
to  a  beggar.  He  was  so  deeply  shocked  that  one  of  his 
friends  had  much  ado  to  prove  to  him,  while  chafing  him 
back  to  life,  that  the  beggar  was  ill-bred,  importunate, 
impudent,  and  unworthy  of  assistance.  Here  at  any  rate 
was  a  man  of  sensibility. 

But  an  untoward  thing  happened.  In  cultivating  sensi- 
bility to  the  utmost,  women  enfeebled  men  instead  of  form- 
ing them.  Anne  of  France  undoubtedly  foresaw  this  danger 
when  she  so  ardently  commended  vigorous  and  matter-of- 
fact  occupations,  and  uttered  a  warning  against  the  abuses 
of  the  religion  of  beauty.     Many  other  ladies,  unhappily, 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  369 

genuine  artists  in  refinement,  took  a  complacent  pleasure  in 
the  very  perfection  of  their  conduct,  with  the  result  that 
always  ensues  in  such  cases :  their  art  became  degraded,  and  in 
sinking  into  a  matter  of  routine,  came  to  ruin.  In  true  love 
there  is,  as  it  were,  an  outpouring  of  one's  nature,  a  vivifying 
joy,  a  sort  of  intense  feeling  which  strengthens  ;  but  in  love 
in  the  more  vulgar  sense  there  is  a  spurious  and  meretricious 
poetry  which  enervates.  An  old  French  proverb  ran : 
"  When  the  woman  rules  the  man,  he  hasn't  much  will  of  his 
own."  This  the  anti-feminists  repeated,  with  too  much 
reason.  "  Ah  yes ! "  cries  Nifo,  "  'tis  in  good  sooth  a  fine 
dream  of  yours.  What  a  magnificent  moral  state  if  all  men 
loved  one  another !  No  more  war,  no  more  crime  !  .  .  .  But 
is  that  the  result  you  have  obtained  ?  You  have  distilled  I 
know  not  what  mawkishness.  Where  are  the  energetic, 
young- witted,  happy,  high-minded  men  born  of  your  affec- 
tions ? "  And  what  was  the  age  of  love  which  was  to  spring 
from  this  generation  ? 

We  cannot  impute  to  platonism  the  creatures  of  watery 
blood  and  hang-dog  look  who  were  to  form  the  nucleus  of 
the  court  of  the  Valois — these  Panurges,  false  from  top  to 
toe,  who  had  early  wasted  their  substance  physical  and 
moral — these  young  tired-eyed  voluptuaries  whom  Lotto 
paints  so  well,  too  weak  to  pluck  the  petals  of  a  rose,  their 
hand  on  their  heart  as  though  to  point  out  the  source  of  the 
mischief.  But  alas  !  we  cannot  but  ascribe  to  sheer  gallantry 
the  mob  of  carpet  knights,  pale-faced,  gilded  cap-a-pie,  gay 
ornaments  of  tourneys,  sleek  and  fawning,  ready  like  Ariosto 
to  sing  imaginary  exploits,  "provided  that  beauty,  which 
every  hour  robs  them  of  some  fresh  portion  of  intelligence, 
leaves  them  enough  for  the  fulfilment  of  their  promise." 
They  are  rigged  out  as  elaborately  as  the  ladies,  if  not  more 
elaborately  (save  that  instead  of  displaying  the  bosom  they 
display  the  leg),  with  flying  plumes ;  in  winter,  smothered 
under  furs ;  in  summer  all  unbraced,  not  being  able  to  endure 
even  a  loose  garment ;  loaded  with  diamonds,  so  that  you 
would  take  them  for  walking  showcases  of  the  king  of 
Naples  or  the  duke  of  Berry.  They  are  philosophical,  in  the 
sense  that  they  soar  high  above  ideas  of  patriotism,  and 
prove  it  by  disguising  themselves  in  costumes  of  all 
nations,  the  Turks  included.  They  are  learned,  that  is 
to  say,  thev  think  it  smart  to  stuff  the  French  language 

2a 


370      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

with  heteroclite  words,  as  though  eager  to  tear  from  it 
its  pith  and  heart,  and  make  this  also  a  delusion  and  a 
snare,  as  universally  acceptable  as  blonde  wigs  and  padded 
busts. 

The  great,  wonderful  reform  effected  by  platonism  in  the 
higher  ranks  of  society  was — that  the  men,  copying  the 
ancient  sages  and  the  orientals,  let  their  beards  grow  !  Up 
till  then,  no  man  could  pretend  to  style  unless  he  shaved,  or 
even,  for  the  sake  of  greater  perfection,  depilated  his  chin ; 
there  had  been  one  cry  of  horror  when  Cardinal  Bessarion 
appeared  with  his  beard  at  the  court  of  Louis  XL  But  now 
that  Castiglione,  the  Roman  prelates,  and  the  high  platonist 
society  sported  the  philosophic  beard,  there  was  a  sudden 
craze  for  going  unshorn  among  the  young  snobs  of  Louis 
XTL's  court, — the  Bonnivets  and  others. 

This  reform,  strange  to  say,  excited  between  the  higher 
and  lower  clergy  one  of  the  most  acrimonious  disputes  with 
which  we  are  acquainted.  Vicars  and  curates  belaboured 
the  bishops  with  texts  against  the  beard.  The  prelates 
parried  with  abstruse  disquisitions ;  they  claimed  that  a 
good  beard  did  no  offence  to  honour  and  probity;  they 
sifted  the  sentiments  of  the  ancient  Romans  in  regard  to 
the  beard  and  found  them  in  sympathy  with  their  own  ; 
they  made  out  that  the  apostles  had  never  dreamt  of 
shaving,  and  proved  to  demonstration  that  a  decree  of  a 
council  of  Carthage,  appealed  to  by  the  lower  clergy,  was 
an  interpolation,  and  in  any  case  was  of  no  authority,  the 
infallibility  of  the  Church  not  dating  back  so  far;  and  a 
decree  of  Alexander  III.,  which  they  were  also  clamorous 
about,  applied  only  to  the  hair  of  the  head. 

For  the  other  part,  to  say  nothing  of  the  beard  of  Julius 
II.,1  one  only  had  to  turn  over  the  leaves  of  church  history 
to  find  on  every  page  bearded  saints,  sometimes  of  high 
eminence;  bearded  hermits,  strangers  alike  to  the  care  of 
the  body,  to  Plato,  and  to  women.  The  dispute  occasioned 
a  terrible  waste  of  eloquence,  erudition,  vivacity,  irony  and 
earnestness.  It  was  of  the  highest  importance,  and  bore  on 
the  most  sacred  interests  of  what  some  eminent  personages 
called  platonism. 

1  Before  becoming  pope  Julius  nad  shaved.  It  was  during  his  pontificate 
that  the  discussion  waxed  bitter.  Clement  VII.  lent  his  name  to  the 
tractate  Pro  sacerdotum  barbis  of  Piero. 


MORAL  INFLUENCE  371 

And  now  it  cannot  fail  to  be  asked  by  what  strange  and 
cruel  logic  a  century,  cradled  at  its  birth  in  the  idea  of 
the  beautiful,  of  love  and  happiness,  was  to  become  a  hotbed 
of  hatred,  the  arena  in  which  the  most  savage  animosities 
were  implacably  to  contend.  Must  we  believe  that  in 
throwing  down  the  barriers  of  a  rigorous  code  and  invoking 
liberty  we  must  inevitably  bruise  ourselves  against  force, 
rendered  thereby  freer  and  more  ferocious?  That  would  be 
a  sad  and  disheartening  conclusion,  for  then  we  should 
have  to  consider  human  progress  as  a  perpetual  recom- 
mencement, seeing  that,  though  the  lawless  rise  insurgent 
against  tender  hearts,  though  gospel  wisdom  warns  us  of 
the  eternal  despotism  of  the  violent,  there  are  still  found 
and  will  ever  be  found  among  us  incorrigible  wretches, 
hungering  for  sympathy,  and  unable  to  live  without  a  ray 
of  love. 


CHAPTER  in 

INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE 

Women  approached  intellectual  questions  in  the  same  dilet- 
tante spirit  as  questions  of  affairs ;  and  this  dilettantism 
was  their  chosen  method.  It  was  waste  of  time  to  speak 
to  them  of  discoveries,  creations,  speculations,  ventures, 
struggles — of  the  scientific  furniture  of  life,  of  all  the  irk- 
some material  tasks  on  which  the  intellectual  existence 
itself  is  based.  They  sought  only  to  crown  the  edifice  with 
happiness,  which  does  not  concern  those  who  clear  the 
ground.1  La  Bruyere  fancied  he  was  saying  a  very  cutting 
thing  when  he  declared  that  "  women  are  cured  of 
idleness  by  means  of  vanity  and  love " ;  it  is  really  very 
amiable  ;  would  to  heaven  the  same  might  be  said  of  certain 
men !  Women  are  cured  of  idleness  by  sentiment ;  they 
reason  with  their  feelings.  You  must  not  ask  them  to 
pry  and  delve  into  the  stubborn  heart  of  things ;  they  look 
at  the  bright  surface,  and  penetrate  what  yields  to  the 
touch.  And  by  this  simple  method  they  perceive  things 
that  escape  the  microscope,  things  that  defy  analysis, 
thanks  to  an  intuitive  impressionability  which  enables  them 
to  see  rather  than  to  know,  and  which  would  be  wholly 
admirable  if  it  were  never  misused.  Further,  they  have  a 
marvellous  and  mysterious  talent  for  expressing  their  enthu- 
siasm ;  a  phrase  feelingly  quoted  by  a  lady  strikes  our 
mind  with  a  quite  peculiar  force  when  we  afterwards  come 
upon  it  in  the  pages  of  a  book.     Again,  they  love  the  men 

1  "  Well  may  a  piece  of  marble  raise  your  titles  as  high  as  you  list, 
because  you  have  repaired  a  piece  of  an  old  wall,  or  cleansed  a  common 
ditch,  but  men  of  judgment  will  never  do  it."    (Montaigne,  III.  x.) 

372 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  373 

who  love  what  they  love.  How  strong  and  firm  a  bond  is  a 
common  love!  And  how  delightful  to  make  mind  the 
handmaid  of  love,  and  perhaps  even  to  make  love  the  hand- 
maid of  mind !  To  live  happy,  what  does  it  matter  whether 
you  have  an  exact  knowledge  of  a  peacock's  or  a  nightin- 
gale's anatomy  ?  Similarly  women  do  not  want  you  to  pull 
words  to  pieces  and  set  them  in  accurate  alphabetical  order, 
but  to  place  them  in  a  living  order,  so  as  to  draw  from 
them  their  vital  force.  As  they  ascribe  everything  to 
love,  and  believe  the  establishment  of  a  balance  in  human 
affairs  absolutely  necessary,  so  they  think  also  that  their 
duty  in  intellectual  matters  is  to  foster  men's  produc- 
tivity, their  beautiful  art  is  concerned  with  men.  Hence 
they  do  not  trouble  to  investigate  very  profoundly  the 
secret  significance  of  surrounding  nature;  it  is  of  little 
moment  to  them  whether  an  artist  seeks  to  reproduce 
natural  forms  with  photographic  fidelity — which  is  in  any 
case  impossible — but  they  insist  on  a  general  resemblance, 
they  require  the  artist  to  indicate  how  a  tree  or  a  land- 
scape reflects  itself  in  man,  and  what  impression  it  pro- 
duces. In  a  word,  they  charge  themselves  with  the 
mission  of  elevating  our  views,  whether  by  developing  by 
means  of  artistic  sensibility  the  ideas  that  lie  in  germ  in 
material  nature,  or  by  constantly  renewing  our  thoughts  by 
means  of  a  liberal  philosophy. 

The  Italian  women  who  at  the  end  of  the  15th  century 
devoted  themselves  to  this  intellectual  programme  were 
legion ;  or  rather,  they  all  did  so.  There  was  no  maiden, 
however  modest  her  station,  who  did  not  consider  herself  in 
a  measure  responsible  for  the  future,  and  who  did  not  make 
real  preparation  for  becoming  the  intellectual  queen  of  a 
salon,  or  of  some  sort  of  home  of  her  own,  while  her 
husband  attended  to  his  external  occupations.  And  when 
her  parents  were  happy  enough  to  detect  in  their  little 
daughter  the  mysterious  spark  of  the  beautiful,  far  from 
mistrusting  it,  they  welcomed  it  with  rapture  as  a  sacred 
gift  of  Providence  and  left  nothing  undone  to  develop  it. 
Signorina  Trivulzi,  a  spoilt  child  of  fortune,  was  in  all 
seriousness  thus  "  consecrated "  to  the  Muses  at  the  age  of 
fourteen. 

Impressionability  is  a  gift  of  nature ;  but  that  does  not 
imply  that  there  is  no  need  to  strengthen  it  by  means  of 


374      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

an  earnest  intellectual  culture.  People  were  only  too 
well  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  this  precaution  when 
they  saw  women  who  were  impressionable  and  nothing 
else  spinning  round  like  weathercocks.  The  Italian 
ladies  of  the  classic  generation  had  known  how  to  take 
a  firm  stand  and  a  steady  hold  on  life,  so  that  they 
united  to  perfection  the  eminently  becoming  qualities 
of  solid  intelligence  and  modesty  with  an  ardent  impulse 
towards  beauty  in  its  philosophic,  religious,  or  artistic 
form. 

If  examples  were  necessary,  our  only  difficulty  would  be 
to  choose  among  women  like  Cassandra  Fideli,  Costanza 
Varano,  Isotta  Nugarola,  and  many  another  worthy  of 
honour.  There  is  little  risk  in  our  indicating  among  the 
queens  of  the  period  Isabella  d'Este,  marchioness  of 
Mantua. 

Isabella,  who  was  born  in  1474,  and  died  in  1525,  belongs 
in  time  to  the  earlier  generation,  of  whose  characteristics 
she  was  thoroughly  representative;  that  is  to  say,  along 
with  a  transparent  soul,  a  heart  full  of  passion,  and  a  quick 
intelligence,  she  retained  virtues  which  were  to  become  rare 
— individuality  of  mind  and  sureness  of  taste.  She  was  not 
one  of  those  impressionable  women  who  are  inevitably 
caught  by  the  glamour  of  established  reputations,  and  who 
urge  men  on  to  achieve  a  noisy  notoriety  j  she  could  form 
her  own  estimate  of  things,  and  become  the  originator 
rather  than  the  follower  of  a  movement.  She  travelled 
frequently  and  to  good  purpose ;  her  friends  and  agents, 
scattered  as  far  as  the  East,  kept  her  informed  of  every 
event  which  might  have  any  bearing  on  the  cult  of  beauty, 
such  as  the  bringing-out  of  notable  books  or  fine  editions, 
the  works  issued  from  great  studios,  excavations,  sales  of 
collections.  At  the  sale  of  the  celebrated  Vianelo  collection 
at  Venice  in  1505,  she  followed  with  the  liveliest  emotion 
the  bidding  for  a  certain  Passage  of  the  Red  Sea  by  Jean 
de  Bruges,  which  she  passionately  coveted,  and  which 
Andrea  Loredano  remorselessly  ran  up  to  a  hundred  and 
fifteen  ducats.  An  antique  Venus  which  much  occupied 
her  thoughts  happened  unluckily  to  be  in  too  good  hands — 
those  of  Caesar  Borgia ;  but  Caesar  was  not  immortal,  and 
one  day  the  Venus  rejoiced  the  heart  of  a  new  owner,  the 
duke  of  Urbino.     Before  long  Cardinal  d'Este  had  willy- 


INTELLECTUAL   INFLUENCE  375 

nilly  to  gird  up  his  loins  in  pursuit  of  it.  (What  a  lucky 
windfall  the  sack  of  Rome  in  1527  was  to  collectors !)  The 
marchioness,  at  the  moment,  emptied  her  purse,  indeed,  rather 
more  than  emptied  it, — always  pretty  easy  to  her ;  she  had 
to  charter  a  boat  to  carry  off  all  her  treasures,  but  alas  !  the 
boat  was  seized  by  some  rascally  pirates,  and  was  never 
heard  of  again !  For  all  these  little  vexations,  those  were 
glorious  days !  One  person's  calamity  was  another's  oppor- 
tunity, and  as  the  result  of  the  growth  of  culture,  a  stone 
newly  unearthed,  a  well-turned  verse  seemed  diamonds  of 
happiness. 

Isabella  was  a  royal,  frank,  delicate  patroness  of 
the  human  intellect.  She  cherished  in  undisturbed 
harmony  around  her  the  Sleeping  Cupid  of  Michel- 
angelo and  a  choice  collection  of  antique  statues;  she 
covered  her  walls  with  the  works  of  Mantegna,  Costa,  and 
Correggio ;  Leonardo  da  Vinci  and  Titian  were  her  portrait 
painters ;  she  herself  painted  her  soul  in  two  words : 
"  Neither  by  hope  nor  by  fear."  As  an  ideal  for  life  and 
an  emblem  for  her  house,  she  commissioned  of  the  great 
idealist  master  Perugino  a  Combat  between  Love  and 
Chastity,1  and  wished  to  arrange  its  composition  to  the 
minutest  details ;  but  poor  Perugino,  whose  soul  was  as 
simple  and  unspoiled  as  his  head  was  thick,  got  a  little 
befogged  in  so  intricate  a  scheme,  so  utterly  unlike  his 
usual  Madonnas ;  and  for  all  his  good  will,  perhaps  he  did 
not  on  that  occasion  produce  his  masterpiece. 

In  France,  the  notable  women  of  the  generation  of  Isa- 
bella d'Este  did  not  plume  themselves  on  playing  a  similar 
part ;  they  rather  avoided  it,  whether  because  as  partisans  of 
physical  activity  they  feared  to  carry  too  much  dilettantism 
into  life,  or  because  circumstances  did  not  strike  them  as 
favourable.  Queen  Anne  of  Brittany,  in  spite  of  her  sur- 
name of  "refuge  of  learned  men,"  never  regarded  art  as 
anything  but  a  royal  and  magnificent  superfluity.  Anne 
of  France  made  her  court  a  veritable  nursery-garden  of 
literary  men  and  artists ;  many  works  of  real  magnificence 
were  added  to  the  library  at  Moulins;  but  Moulins  did 
not  radiate  an  influence  like  Mantua.  It  was  only  the 
next  generation  that  saw  the  appearance  of  women  of 
the  Italian  type,  those  queens   of  the   intellect   of  whom 

1  In  the  Louvre. 


376      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Mary  Stuart  was  to  leave  us  the  enchanting  memory 
— Mary,  to  whom  Ronsard  could  say  without  undue 
exaggeration — 

Le  jour  que  vostre  voile  aux  vagues  se  courba, 
Et  de  noa  yeux  pleurana  les  vostres  deroba, 
Ce  jour,  la  mesoie  voile  emporta  loin  de  France 
Lea  Muaea  qui  aouloient  y  faire  demou  ranee. 
Depuis,  noatre  Parnaaae  eat  devenu  at6rile  ; 
Sa  aource  maintenant  d'une  bourbe  diatile  .  .  . 
Son  laurier  est  86ch6,  8on  lierre  eat  deatruit  l1 

Then  the  taste  for  pure  art  and  the  influence  of  the 
South  towards  preciosity  came  in  with  a  flourish  of 
trumpets.  The  first  French  Renaissance,  in  close  contact 
with  rural  traditions,  had  devoted  itself  mainly  to  the 
development  of  force  of  intellect.  It  had  attached  only  a 
secondary  value  to  the  worship  of  form  and  to  external 
beauty ;  persons  who  composed  verses,  like  Charles  of 
Orleans,  did  not  proclaim  the  fact.  Classical  relations 
were  established  with  ancient  Rome,  the  city  which  drove 
its  iron  into  the  soul  and  left  indestructible  landmarks  on 
the  soil  of  France.  A  ready  assent  would  have  been  given 
to  the  saying  of  Seneca:  "There  is  only  one  art  that  is 
truly  liberal  and  makes  a  man  free,  and  that  is  the  study  of 
wisdom ;  all  other  arts  are  base  and  puerile.  ...  I  cannot 
give  the  name  of  liberal  arts  to  painting,  statuary,  and  the 
decorative  arts." 

This  prejudice  was  persistent,  with  the  result  that,  even 
while  yielding  unreservedly  to  the  religion  of  beauty, 
people  could  not  bring  themselves  to  grant  the  plastic  arts 
the  same  pre-eminence  as  in  Italy.  Moreover,  even  in  Italy, 
painting  had  had  much  difficulty  in  securing  a  footing: 
many  people  at  any  rate  gave  sculpture  the  preference,  that 
being  plastic  indeed,  but  less  decorative,  more  scientific,  dur- 
able, and  complete.  The  comparison  served  as  a  theme 
for  jeux  d'esprit.     Some  people  amused  themselves  with 

'The  day  thy  sail  dipped  to  the  dancing  brine, 
And  from  our  streaming  eyes  robbed  sight  of  thine, 
That  fatal  bark  bore  far  from  weeping  France 
The  Muses  erst  who  dwelt  there — sad  mischance  ! 
And  now  Parnassus  thrums  a  tuneless  lyre, 
And  Helicon  distils  an  ooze  of  mire  ; 
Our  laurel  is  all  parched,  our  ivy  sere, 
Our  song-birds  stint  their  singing — thou  not  here  ! 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  377 

defending  the  superiority  of  painting,  by  calling  God  the 
first  of  painters,  the  sublime  decorator ;  others  carried  the 
paradox  to  the  point  of  demonstrating  that  painting  is 
necessary  to  war,  if  only  for  drawing  up  plans  or  making 
sketches ;  that  it  evoked  the  enthusiasm  of  the  greatest 
conquerors,  like  Alexander  the  Great,  and  Demetrius,  who 
relinquished  the  siege  of  Rhodes  rather  than  risk  setting 
fire  to  a  district  of  the  city  where  a  picture  by  Protogenes 
might  have  perished  in  the  flames.  In  reality  the  Italians 
were  fond  of  painting  because  they  found  in  it  one  of  the 
most  tender  and  delightful  forms  of  poetry.  Castiglione 
well  expressed  this  feeling  to  the  sculptor  Cristoforo 
Romano :  "  It  is  not  my  friendship  for  Raphael  that  leads 
me  to  prefer  painting :  I  know  Michelangelo,  I  know  you, 
I  know  all  these  masters !  But  I  find  in  painting  a  mar- 
vellous charm ;  it  has  its  plays  of  light,  its  chiaroscuro ;  it 
demands  as  much  skill  in  design  as  sculpture,  and  offers 
special  difficulties  in  regard  to  foreshortenings  and  per- 
spective. It  gives  us  the  colours  of  reality;  it  renders 
more  satisfactorily  the  flesh,  the  eyes,  the  sheen  of  armour, 
the  delicious  golden  hues  of  hair,  the  radiance  of  love.  It 
alone  can  speak  to  us  of  Nature,  reproduce  for  us  the  starry 
skies,  the  hurricanes  and  tempests,  the  rosy  dawn,  the  earth 
and  sea,  hills  and  woods,  meadows  and  gardens,  rivers,  cities 
and  houses." 

Among  the  French,  on  the  contrary,  the  triumph  of 
aestheticism  led  to  the  lowering  of  the  plastic  arts  in 
general  esteem  ;  painters,  sculptors  and  architects  no  longer 
received  the  same  personal  and  affectionate  support  from 
high-born  ladies  as  formerly  from  Anne  of  France  or  Anne 
of  Brittany ;  they  lost  caste  at  the  court  of  Francis  I.,  and 
gained  nothing  but  higher  wages ;  they  were  treated  rather 
like  house-decorators  or  upholsterers.  People  applied  to 
art  the  general  principle  :  Seek  ye  first  intellectual  beauty. 
All  were  agreed  that  thought  must  be  worshipped  in  its 
highest  possible  purity;  and  as  thought  nevertheless  needs  a 
material  vesture,  poetry  was  its  fitting  garb,  as  "  daughter 
of  the  skies  " ;  and  consequently  the  movement  followed  a 
bent  almost  exclusively  literary  and  philosophico-poetical. 
It  is  hardly  necessary  for  us  to  say  that  we  are  here  con- 
fining ourselves  to  the  sphere  of  feminine  illusions.  No  one 
disputes  the  beneficial  effect  of  mountain  air  on  certain 


378      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

somplaints;  but  it  would  be  exceedingly  tiresome  if  all 
mankind  were  condemned  to  live  on  the  summit  of  the 
Righi. 

Margaret  of  France  set  herself  in  opposition  to  these 
Alpine  ladies,  who  took  such  delight  in  the  ever-receding 
altitudes  of  the  intellect.  She  was  driven  to  adopt  this 
attitude  of  temerity  partly  by  her  position.  As  sister  of 
the  king,  she  had  to  fill  the  part  of  "  queen  of  the  sex,"  and 
so  far  as  higher  matters  were  concerned,  it  appeared  natural 
and  right  that  her  brother  should  follow  her  advice.1  This 
explains  why  the  poets  so  decorously  did  homage  to  her : 
"heroine  of  the  age,"  they  called  her,  "mind  and  knowledge 
in  person  .  .  .  flower  of  flowers,  the  choicest  of  the  choice 
.  .  .  less  human  than  divine." 

Apart  from  the  inconveniences  of  too  lofty  a  station, 
Margaret  suffered  from  those  arising  from  her  training, 
having  like  many  women  the  misfortune  of  being  particularly 
sensible  to  influences ;  her  flights  are  often  those  of  some- 
one else.  She  remained  unswervingly  faithful  to  the  habits 
of  her  childhood,  in  other  words,  to  a  brilliant  and  sceptical 
environment,  in  which  ready  wit  was  regarded  as  the 
supreme  gift,  and  liberty  consisted  in  seeing  everything, 
reading  everything,  hearing  everything  from  a  detached 
eminence,  superficially,  and  without  caring  for  anything  in 
particular  except  the  satisfaction  of  a  sense  of  form.  The  only 
dogma  tenaciously  held  was  the  pre-eminence  of  women, 
and  it  was  an  accepted  maxim  ir.  that  society  that  one 
woman  of  real  accomplishment  conduces  more  effectually  to 
human  happiness  than  all  the  lumber  of  sciences  and  all  the 
litter  of  books. 

Margaret  was  thus  a  philosopher,  generous  and  variable, 
sceptical  and  enthusiastic,  somewhat  visionary,  because  the 
speculative  spirit  spells  freedom  and  distinction.     But  she 

1  Prince  FrancoyB,  veulx  tu,  comrae  seigneur 
SupeVieur,  estre  dominateur, 
Prans  pour  faveur,  par  amour  et  m^rile, 
Celle  qui  est  en  florae  verdeur, 
Digne  d'honneur,  nominee  Margarite. 

[Prince  Francis,  if  thou  dost  desire 
To  rule  indeed  as  lord  and  sire, 
For  love  and  worth  in  favour  set 
Her  who  is  filled  with  youthful  fire, 
Deserving  honour,  Margaret.  ] 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  379 

was  lacking  in  that  ballast  of  serious  studies x  which,  after 
all,  alone  permits  the  development  of  one's  personality. 

Thus  lost  in  the  clouds,  unstable  and  vacillating,  in  reality 
she  took  no  one  intellectual  party  under  her  wing ;  she 
smiled  on  everything  that  was  beautiful  or  pleasant,  in  other 
words,  on  every  means  of  acting  on  men.  She  was  fond  of 
the  music  of  that  period,  a  wholly  psychological  art  with 
very  little  to  tickle  the  ears  of  the  groundlings,  but  speaking 
to  the  soul ;  she  loved  any  product  of  the  intellect  provided 
the  setting  was  worthy  of  the  gem — ribald  stories  if  they 
were  witty,  the  drama,  lofty  speculations  on  the  emotional 
life,  thoughts  of  divine  love,  the  religious  contemplation  of 
God.  All  these  manifestations  of  the  soul,  so  little  alike, 
she  regarded  as  forming  a  single  philosophic  chain,  a  chain 
of  beauty  leading  up  to  God.  This  idea  enabled  her  to  link 
together  conceptions  which  appear  to  us  disconcerting  in 
juxtaposition,  and  which  her  contemporaries  themselves 
were  at  a  loss  to  reconcile. 

Her  patronage  was  above  all  an  art,  the  art  of  playing 
upon  the  human  intelligence  as  on  the  finest  of  keyboards, 
as  on  a  magnificent  and  genuinely  divine  instrument,  and  of 
drawing  from  it  the  grand  harmonies  of  which  it  is  capable, 
the  tones  with  which  the  Supreme  Artist  has  endowed  it. 
Here  she  strikes  a  grave  and  profound  note,  there  a  note 
shrill  or  thin  ;  she  sets  men  vibrating.  "  What ! "  she  seems 
to  say,  "  they  say  that  love  deadens !  No,  no !  People  of 
feeling  may  find  their  joy  in  their  own  natures,  but  that 
does  not  hinder  them  from  finding  it  outside  themselves." 
Bouchet  and  Rabelais,  two  men  of  the  traditional  school, 
were  dependents  of  Margaret,  as  well  as  Charbonnier  and 
Marot,  the  poets  of  the  day,  or  Du  Bellay  and  Ronsard,  the 
poets  of  the  morrow.  Surrounded  by  Catholic  prelates, 
herself  the  intellectual  lieutenant  of  a  king  hostile  to  the 
Reformers,  the  princess  interested  herself  in  everything: 
Lefevre  d'Etaples  and  Vatable  discussed  the  Bible  with 
her,  Nicolas  Mauroy  translated  the  Psalms  for  her;  Jean 
Breche  translated  Plutarch,  and  Le  Masson,  Boccaccio.  Her 
own  intellect  volatilised  itself,  and  was  content  to  perfume 
the  atmosphere. 

1  This  is  especially  noticeable  in  her  first  work,  The  Mirror  of  the  Soul, 
which  she  modestly  called  the  work  of  a  woman  "  who  had  in  herseli 
neither  science  nor  knowledge."    Besides,  she  employed  a  good  secretary. 


380      THE  WOMEN   OF   THE  RENAISSANCE 

It  was  the  same  in  regard  to  persons ;  she  admitted  to 
intimate  fellowship  with  her  the  most  diverse  personages 
provided  they  were  able  to  love  ;  and  freedom  of  sentiment 
was  apparently  the  essential  condition  of  life.  Moreover, 
the  intellectual  life  had  not  yet  assumed  the  rectangular  and 
rigid  forms  under  which  we  know  it ;  and  as  people  were 
particularly  eager  for  impressions,  they  were  on  their  guard 
against  all  the  checks  by  which  we  so  cleverly  destroy  them. 
A  ruined  wall  was  a  ruin,  moss  and  neglect  were  part  of  its 
being ;  no  one  dreamt  of  scraping  it,  ticketing  it,  surround- 
ing it  with  an  iron  fence  and  a  ring  of  pebbles.  An  ancient 
monument  showed  itself  as  it  was,  covered  with  all  the  vegeta- 
tion which  gave,  so  to  say,  artistic  expression  to  the  life  of 
succeeding  generations ;  no  one  dreamt  of  rebuilding  it  as  it 
originally  stood ;  objects  of  art  were  objects  of  art,  which 
people  left  in  the  places  they  were  made  for,  well  in  view 
and  fittingly  displayed,  instead  of  carting  them  away  and 
piling  them  up  in  gold  frames  and  lifeless  desolation  on  the 
walls  of  a  museum. 

To  understand  the  intellectual  dilettantism  of  Margaret 
we  must  steep  ourselves  in  these  ideas  of  liberty  and  life, 
which  are  so  alien  to  our  modes  of  thought,  and  which  even 
then  were  on  the  point  of  disappearing.  Margaret  loved  to 
make  an  emotional  impression  on  others,  but  she  was  not  at 
all  anxious  to  guide  their  reason,  any  more  than  she  was 
anxious  to  be  guided  herself.  Her  zest  for  liberty,  pushed 
to  its  extreme  limit,  went  almost  as  far  as  anarchy.  What 
a  singular  intellectual  harem  was  hers!  Here  was  a  gay 
dog  whose  humour  had  a  touch  of  obscenity  ;  there  was  a 
dear  friend,  the  protonoUry  D'Anthe,  author  of  witty  trifles 
particularly  wanton,  for  instance  the  Blason  d'une  jeune 
Jille,  which  we  could  hardly  venture  to  reproduce ;  or  again, 
in  an  entirely  different  direction,  the  oppressively  virtuous 
Lavardin,  a  mighty  fang-extractor,  whose  special  duty  was 
to  expurgate  improper  books;  or  the  squeamish  La  Perriere, 
who  was  a  century  behind  the  times,  apologised  for  em- 
ploying the  names  of  mythology,  and  had  the  worst  of  all 
defects,  that  of  being  a  bore.  These  various  minds,  work- 
ing symmetrically,  produce  somewhat  the  same  effect  as 
those  many-paned  mirrors  set  revolving  by  an  invisible 
hand,  which  might  flash  for  ever  without  luring  an  eagle, 
but  are  very  serviceable  for  catching  larks.     The  defect  of 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  381 

this  society  was  that  it  attracted  second-rate  personages, 
pushing  men,  notoriety  hunters.  Moreover,  platonist  society 
had  always  a  strong  tendency  to  degenerate  into  snobbery ; 
it  had  too  much  worldliness  of  character  not  to  suit  drawing- 
room  intriguers  and  men  who  knew  how  to  get  on  in  the 
world.  Platonism  knew  nothing  of  the  modest  and  intelli- 
gent men  who  kept  in  the  background  to  enjoy  the  human 
comedy.  This  defect  amused  Castiglione :  "  To  be  learned," 
he  said,  "you  must  belong  to  the  learned  set."  The  result 
was  sometimes  amusing  blunders  ;  through  being  attributed 
to  the  wrong  author  a  poem  or  a  piece  of  music  would  be 
received  with  hearty  applause,  but  afterwards,  when  better 
informed,  the  applauders  would  hiss,  or  vice  versa.  It  is  the 
same  with  everything :  wine  is  good  or  bad  according  to  the 
label;  Castiglione  guarantees  he  will  present  you  any  fool 
and  get  you  to  believe  him  a  genius.1 

Margaret  of  France  had  a  taste  for  notoriety,  and  sought 
to  bring  together  all  the  men  who  could  voice  the  various 
opinions  of  France.  She  showed  them  so  much  affectionate 
attention  that  each  believed  himself  to  be  the  favourite, 
and  every  cause  looked  on  her  as  an  adherent ;  to  this  day, 
after  three  centuries  and  a  half,  the  witchery  of  the  princess 
remains  so  potent  that  everyone  loves  her  and  lays  claim  to 
her ;  the  platonic  think  she  was  a  platonist,  Rabelaisians 
rank  her  as  one  of  themselves,  Protestants  call  her  a 
Protestant.  She  contented  herself  with  disseminating  love, 
with  reconciling  and  discreetly  moderating  bitter  differences 
without  ever  bemoaning  those  which  had  brought  suffering 
to  herself.  It  is  a  singular  thing  that  at  a  distance  she 
is  sometimes  taken  for  a  domineering,  masculine  blue- 
stocking, one  of  those  women  who  shake  men  as  the  wind 
shakes  the  trees,  stripping  them  of  leaf  and  blossom;  whereas 
near  at  hand  she  was  all  softness  and  loving-heartedness. 
The  most  ardent  declarations  brought  no  frown  to  her  brow 
(and  left  her  heart  untouched) ;  she  pardoned  them,  laughed 

1  Another  anecdote  of  the  court  of  Urbino.  A  Bergamese  peasant  had 
just  entered  the  service  of  a  nobleman.  The  princesses  were  told  that  there 
had  arrived  a  retainer  of  Cardinal  Borgia,  who  was  a  fine  musician,  a 
dancer,  and  a  great  oddity.  They  fetched  him  in,  welcomed  him,  sat  him 
down  among  them,  and  lionised  him  with  great  respect.  Unhappily  the 
good  man  spoke  an  indescribable  jargon.  The  author  of  the  trick  made  the 
princesses  believe  that  he  was  shamming  the  Lombard  peasant  for  fun. 
The  scene  lasted  a  rather  long  time,  while  those  in  the  secret  were  splitting 
their  sides. 


382      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

at  thorn,  sometimes  received  them  with  a  smile  of  pleasure. 
Thus  a  nobody  named  Jacques  Pelletier  permits  himself  to 
call  her  "  the  half  of  my  soul,"  and  boasts  of  her  "  bitter- 
sweet favours,"  by  which  he  means  tender  and  coy.  But 
Margaret  for  all  her  bashfulness  does  not  care  for  bashful 
men ;  she  prefers  energetic  and  robustious  men  who  set  the 
pulses  beating,  who  even  make  themselves  tiresome  and 
are  not  incapable  of  follies.  A  certain  M.  de  Lavaux  swears 
he  will  die  if  she  does  not  take  pity  on  his  martyrdom ;  she 
promises  him  an  admirable  De  Profundis.  The  amiable 
Hugues  Salel  praised  her  pretty  hand  in  extremely  graceful 
little  verses; *  she  sends  him  a  pair  of  scented  gloves  and  a 
bracelet.  But  she  never  forgets  Marot;  beyond  thetomb,when 
all  follies  are  over,  she  still  proves  her  sympathy  for  him. 

Apart  from  this  spirit  of  love  you  will  probe  the  depths 
of  her  soul  in  vain ;  there  is  nothing  else  to  be  found. 

Margaret  has  photographed  herself  in  her  dressing-gown, 
surrounded  by  her  intimate  friends,  in  the  Heptameron  ;2 

1 0  main  polye,  main  divine, 
Main  qm  n'as  ta  pareille  en  terre, 
Main  qui  tient  la  paix  et  la  guerre... 
Main  portant  la  clef  pour  fermer 
Et  ouvrir  Thuya  de  bien  aymer, 
Main  plaisante,  main  delicate, 
Je  n'oseroia  te  dire  ingrate. 
Tu  peulx  blesser,  tu  peulx  guerir, 
Tu  peulx  faire  vivre  et  mourir. 

[0  fair  smooth  hand,  0  hand  divine, 
Hand  never  match'd  on  earth  before, 
The  arbiter  of  peace  and  war, 
That  bears  the  key  to  lock  or  loose 
The  door  for  happy  lover's  use, 
O  pleasant  hand  and  dainty,  ne'er 
To  call  thee  thankless  could  I  dare. 
'Tis  thine  to  wound  and  thine  to  heal, 
And  thine  both  life  and  death  to  deal.  ] 

a  The  question  has  often  been  asked  whether  the  Heptameron  is  a  work 
of  imagination,  or  whether  it  should  be  taken  seriously.  After  the  labours 
of  MM.  de  Montaiglon,  Franck,  and  Gaston  Paris,  to  speak  only  of  the 
principal  authorities,  there  can  be  no  longer  any  doubt.  Margaret,  like 
Castiglione,  certifies  in  a  general  way  the  veracity  of  her  stories.  She 
worked  at  this  collection  for  several  years,  beginning  probably  in  1545, 
and  with  so  much  care  that  in  1549,  when  she  died,  she  left  it  incomplete. 
The  Heptameron  then  is  not  a  juvenile  work,  but  the  testament  of  her 
court  life  and  her  philosophic  career,  and  an  autobiography,  since  several 
anecdotes  relate  to  her,  her  brother,  and  her  intimate  friends.  Moreover, 
among  the  large  number  of  manuscripts  she  left  in  her  portfolios,  Boistuau 
(another  strange  character,   to  judge  by  his  works !)  chose  this  one  to 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  383 

the  authenticity  of  the  portrait  is  guaranteed  by  herself 
and  her  daughter.  And  what  strikes  one  most  forcibly 
in  her  doctrine  is  a  pretty  style  and  an  excellent  solicitude 
to  avoid  dulness. 

Her  gospel  was,  in  heaven  God,  on  earth  Francis  I. ;  after 
them  the  Beautiful,  in  which  she  believed  with  all  her 
heart  as  the  source  of  all  goodness  and  all  truth.  So  far  as 
happiness  was  concerned,  she  boldly  steered  for  love,  which 
she  regarded  as  the  port  for  the  Good  and  the  True.  But 
she  had  little  faith  in  passion,  and  confined  herself  to 
drawing  a  most  careful  distinction  between  sentiment, 
which  she  praised,  and  sensation,  which  she  condemned ; 
her  system  was  built  up  on  casuistry.  She  thought  that  a 
woman  might  frankly  accept  the  offer  of  a  virtuous  and 
perfect  love;  if  the  man  secretly  harboured  any  carnal 
design,  so  much  the  worse  for  him !  Having  never  loved 
deeply  herself,  while  on  the  other  hand  she  had  heard  so 
much  talk  of  love,  she  believed  that  love  was  not  fatal  and 
that  a  woman  was  by  no  means  bound  to  push  charity  to 
the  point  of  absolute  self-sacrifice.  But  remember,  she  did 
not  commingle  the  ideas  of  love  and  marriage,  which  were 
absolutely  distinct.  As  no  one  can  love  God  without  first 
loving  one  of  His  creatures,  her  design  was  to  lure  men 
thus  towards  the  perfect  love  of  God,  and  then  towards  a 
mystic  and  philosophical  contemplation  of  the  Godhead. 

Unluckily,  she  did  not  reach  her  goal,  or  even  get  within 
sight  of  it.  Not  for  want  of  ardour  :  it  may  well  be  said  of 
her :  "  Woman  is  a  flame  flaming  for  ever."  For  Bonnivet, 
"  even  in  their  ashes"  lived  her  "wonted  fires,"  lighting  up  in 
him  the  happy  memories  of  youth.  She  spoke  with  fervour, 
overwhelmed  the  sceptics  with  biting  taunts  or  lofty 
deductions,  stimulated  the  timid  by  a  cheering  word,  a 
flight  of  sentiment.  But  she  wore  herself  out  in  this  per- 
petual skirmishing ;  what  she  lacked  was  the  will  and  the 
intellectual  power  to  effect  a  sharp,  decisive  stroke. 

As  for  those  on  whose  conversion  to  the  system  of  beauty 
and  love  she  uselessly  spent  her  strength,  she  got  little 
satisfaction  from  them. 

nublish  under  the  title  of  History  of  Fortunate  Lovers,  with  some  touching 
up,  and  a  few  excisions  he  thought  it  well  to  make  in  certain  risky 
passages.  This  precaution  gave  offence,  and  Margaret's  own  daughter 
took  care  to  get  a  new  and  authentic  edition  published,  two  years  later. 


384      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Attached  to  her  car  she  dragged  along  two  lovers,  who 
ought  to  have  been  the  apostles  of  her  philosophy.  In 
reality  these  very  men  resisted  her. 

One  of  them,  the  steward  Jean  de  Montause',1  an  excellent 
type  of  official,  gallant,  frank  of  speech,  amiable  in  manner, 
and  infinitely  courteous,  never  succeeded  in  realising  the 
transcendent  and  virtuous  object  she  had  in  view.  Learning, 
he  finds,  is  turned  to  bad  uses:  religion  he  respects  on 
principle,  without  studying  it  deeply,  and  laughing  in  his 
sleeve  at  certain  mysteries ;  but  virtue  he  recognises  in 
Madame  de  Montause'  (he  is  married),  not  elsewhere.  How 
Margaret  exclaims  at  him  may  be  imagined!  Louise  of 
Savoy  takes  Montause'  under  her  wing. 

The  other  lover,  Nicolas  Dangu,  bishop  of  Seez,  possesses 
all  the  princess's  affection.  He  follows  her  to  watering- 
places,  sentiment  oozing  at  every  pore.  He  has  good  sense, 
modesty,  and  so  eminently  conciliatory  a  spirit  that  he  does 
not  deny  intelligence  to  monks  and  the  common  people ;  he 
even  has  a  profound  admiration  for  the  genius  of  certain 
malefactors.  What  a  delightful  creature  is  the  genuine 
platonic  prelate,  so  polished,  so  amenable!  How  tender, 
how  honeyed,  how  bland !  But  he  too  opposes  an  almost 
insurmountable  obstacle  to  her  philosophy  in  practice ;  he 
dares  not  love  her  love,  think  her  thoughts ;  he  does  think, 
but  it  is  of  dying  of  love,  and  he  has  a  thousand  ways  of 
doing  that.  He  is  always  dying ;  he  would  die  rather  than 
say  a  foolish  thing  or  betray  a  secret;  he  dares  not  put 
woman's  love  to  the  test,  for  fear  of  finding  it  wanting;  if 
it  proved  real,  he  would  die  of  joy.  He  gets  angry  with 
Henri  d'Albret,  but  personally  seems  quite  content  with 
what  he  has  not  got ;  he  is  the  perfection  of  wisdom  and 
prudence !  Yet  he  gently  insinuates  that  too  coy  a  virtue 
may  become  cruel.  Margaret  is  a  little  troubled ;  she  replies 
that  before  she  can  trust  men  she  requires  good  sureties, 
and  meanwhile  she  forgives  Dangu's  rash  speech  because  he 
speaks  well  of  women.  That  is  all  she  has  been  able  to  get 
out  of  him,  the  perfect  platonist !  But  that  also  is  all  she 
gives  him. 

This  social  governance,  then,  does  not  go  to  the  heart 
of  the  question  at  issue,  and  does  not  even  convert  those 
who  from  the  first  were  apostles  of  the  dawn,  still  less  the 

'So  we  identify  M  Simontault,"  [one  of  the  raconteurs  of  the  ffeptameron]. 


INTELLECTUAL   INFLUENCE  385 

indifferent,  the  soi-disant  serious  men  of  the  world  who  are 
met  with  almost  everywhere.  The  Beptameron  presents  us 
with  several  types,  eminently  true  to  life,  who  clearly  show 
that  conversation  is  not  to  be  relied  on  to  propagate  the 
philosophy :  a  trim  little  widow,  Madame  de  Longray, 
infatuated  about  her  dead  husband  and  very  bewitching  to 
other  women's  husbands,  a  veritable  scatter-brain  in  all 
purity  and  honour;  Mademoiselle  Francoise  de  CJermont,1  a 
plump  little  soul,  a  bit  of  a  goose,  who  loves  naughty 
anecdotes,  but  is  extremely  shocked  at  the  naturalistic 
theories  of  Henri  d'Albret  and  Louise  of  Savoy ;  the 
hoary  Burye,  who  has  lost  all  hi?  illusions  with  his  teeth, 
convinced  by  experience  of  the  necessity  of  platonism, 
without  feeling  the  want  of  a  brand-new  deity  expressly 
manufactured  for  him;  Mademoiselle  de  Clermont  calls 
him  "  Old  Father  Virtue."  Then  there  is  the  mother 
of  the  famous  Brantome,  Anne  of  Vivonne,2  the  Jin 
de  siecle  woman,  a  friend  of  canons,  but  a  foe  to  monks  ; 
virtuous  in  principle,  but  so  kind,  so  very  kind  !  She  can- 
not understand  how  a  woman  can  live  without  being  loved  ; 
she  can  refuse  nothing  to  anybody  ;  she  has  a  warm  affec- 
tion for  St.  Magdalene. 

"  Saffredent,"  a  well-preserved  white-headed  beau,  cannot 
make  head  or  tail  of  all  the  new  theories,  and  does  not  mean  to. 
They  humiliate  him.  Do  people  take  him  for  a  mummy,  a 
valetudinarian,  a  blown-out  salamander — for  one  of  those 
golden-tongued  Italians  who  are  all  tongue  and  nothing 
else  ?  For  a  dull  student  with  no  wants  beyond  his  water- 
bottle  and  his  cook  ?  He  is  a  knight,  esteems  only  valour  and 
daring  and  integrity.  His  speech  is  like  a  clarion -call ; 
true  virtue,  he  maintains,  consists  in  loving  according  to 
the  law  of  nature, — in  loving  one  woman  with  all  one's  heart 
rather  than  in  idolising  thirty-six  on  paper.  Use  is  better 
than  abuse.  At  this  unkind  and  clinching  phrase  there. is  a 
general  outcry,  and  Madame  de  Longray  sighs. 

Philosophy  limits  itself  to  these  extremely  superficial 
passages  at  arms.  Margaret  takes  pleasure  in  them ;  she 
resembles  a  blue,  transparent  sea,  chafed  and  rippled 
by  the  sportive  breezes,  every  moment  glistening  and 
changing  form ;  but  the  wind  is  not  set  nor  the  sunlight 
steady. 

i  Thus  we  identify  "  Nomerfide."  a  "  Ennasuite."    . 


386      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

She  has  left  us  a  large  number  of  writings,  in  which  we 
might  at  least  hope  to  find  or  to  seek  for  a  more  definite 
groundwork  of  ideas. 

M.  Le  Franc  has  devoted  himself  to  the  difficult  task  of 
examining  them  all,  and  in  these,  again,  he  has  found  some- 
thing of  everything — philosophical  mysticism,  solemn  farces, 
pious  impieties,moralities  half  moral, aristocratico-democratic 
diversions.  The  only  note  common  to  all  is  a  profound 
sense  of  the  emptiness  of  things — which  has  nothing  in 
common  with  happiness  !  Sometimes  through  the  most 
magnificent  fantasies  one  catches  sight  of  a  big  rolling  tear. 
Margaret  tells  us  that  she  knew  three  lives :  a  life  of  love,  an 
intellectual  life,  and  a  life  of  contemplation.  But  she  is  lost, 
as  it  were,  in  the  desert  of  her  thought,  and  when  her  god 
on  earth,  the  big,  jovial,  sensual  Francis  I,  dies,  she  breaks 
down  altogether,  and  falls  back  almost  desperately  upon 
religion  with  its  terrors. 

Life  is  an  instrument  of  vulgar  joy,  which  exalts  only 
those  who  humble  themselves  ;  Margaret's  mistake  was  in 
wishing  to  remain  always  on  the  heights. 

Her  maxim  was  to  distinguish  flesh  from  spirit,  "  dark- 
ness from  light,"  and  to  love  love  for  love's  sake  :  "  Thy 
love  loves  thee."  But,  apart  from  the  fact  that  these  ideas 
were  not  absolutely  her  own,  and  that  the  second  already 
denotes  a  declension  from  platonism,  we  are  disturbed  on 
perceiving  here  and  there  a  strange  finger-mark.  Margaret 
had  for  her  private  secretary  and  collaborator  a  sort  of 
scoundrel,  a  demon  of  wit,  but  one  who  believed  in  nothing, 
not  even  in  his  "  Minerva."  On  reading  the  Mh*ror  of  the 
Soul,  her  first  work,  and  one  which  betrays  the  prentice 
hand,  Bonaventure  des  Pe'riers  at  once  perceived  that  there 
was  a  place  to  be  filled  about  the  author ;  he  plied  her  with 
entreaties,  and  with  puns,  and  thus  became  a  lieutenant  of 
platonism.  The  princess  showed  him  infinite  kindnesses; 
in  his  Cymbalum,  in  which  he  flouted  the  only  principles 
on  which  men  were  still  at  one — the  existence  of  God  and  a 
few  truths  of  elementary  morality — Des  Pe'riers  was  mean 
enough  to  hold  her  up  to  ridicule ;  he  represented  her  as 
seeking  to  imbue  poets  with  a  "  chaste  and  divine  "  spirit, 
and  sending  to  Pluto  (with  a  u)  to  ask  at  once  for  news  of 
the  painter  Zeuxis  and  for  patterns  of  tapestry.1     Margaret 

1  Margaret  excelled  in  artistic  needlework.    She  made  a  piece  of  tapestry, 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  387 

forgave  everything  ;  she  granted  the  villain  a  "  prison  "  in 
her  house,  and  tried  again  to  improve  him  by  setting  him 
to  translate  the  Dialogues  of  Plato.  But  Des  Periers,  not 
finding  in  them  the  secret  of  happiness,  escaped  for  good 
and  all  by  suicide  in  1544,  and  Margaret  once  more  showed 
her  pity  by  patronising  a  posthumous  edition  of  his  works. 
That  was  the  man  who  had  doubtless  a  most  intimate  part 
in  the  composition  of  writings  which  he  heartily  despised, 
and  which  he  called  a  *  Pactolus  of  verse  and  prayer."  He 
boasted  of  being  their  "  miscreator,"  and  in  offering  one  of 
them  to  the  author  he  said,  with  matchless  impudence,  "  Here 
is  your  immortal  book,  and  you  will  find  my  faults  there." 
,-Thus,  if  you  come  near  Margaret  of  France,  who  appears 
to  govern  everything,  you  find  nothing  but  a  mere  dilet- 
tantism, a  manifestation  of  intellectual  epicurism,  which 
influences  either  ideas  or  the  expression  of  them.  She  fixed 
her  eyes  not  on  truth,  but  on  happiness. 

As  a  guiding  force  Diana  of  Poitiers  showed  more 
precision  and  vigour. 

Having  innumerable  reasons  for  leaning  less  towards  the 
Medici,  with  more  physical  beauty  than  Margaret,  more 
highly  endowed  in  respect  of  will,  she  did  not  devote  herself 
exclusively  to  the  cultivation  of  the  intellect ;  she  loved  all 
the  arts,  the  plastic  included,  in  the  good  old  way.  She  had 
a  pretty  skill  in  poetry,  and  appreciated  books,  especially 
beautiful  manuscripts  and  fine  bindings.  She  had  in  her 
library  the  Bible,  the  church  Fathers,  and  books  on  mystic 
theology,  alongside  of  her  favourite  romances,  particularly 
the  Amadis,  which  she  recommended  to  the  King ;  to  these, 
as  an  eminently  practical  woman,  she  added  books  on  medi- 
cine and  natural  history;  no  philosophy  to  speak  of;  a  copy 
of  Politian,  a  few  treatises  on  history  and  geography,  a 
Plutarch,  a  fair  amount  of  poetry.  For  her,  Philibert  Delorme 
built  Anet,  Jean  Goujon  wrought  sculptures  for  it,  Jean 
Cousin,  Leonard  Limosin,  and  Bernard  Palissy  decorated  it. 
She  was  in  fact  a  French  counterpart  of  Isabella  d'Este,  a 
marvellous  type  of  the  "  lady  art  patron."  Without  aiming 
at  the  quintessences  of  pure  love,  she  really  and  practically 
laboured  to  elevate  the  cult  of  beauty. 

representing  a  high  mass  as  perfectly  as  a  picture  could  have  done.  While 
she  plied  her  needle,  she  had  near  her  someone  to  read  to  her,  or  a  historian, 
poet,  or  writer  of  some  kind  to  talk  to  her. 


388      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Women  who  feel  within  themselves  the  power  to  bear  on 
the  sacred  torch  and  to  draw  minds  directly  towards  the 
idea  of  the  beautiful  certainly  ought  not  to  hesitate.  But 
after  all,  to  appreciate  art  in  its  practical  results,  to  criticise 
it,  to  support  it  by  one's  approbation,  is  a  very  noble  end, 
and  one  suited  to  any  woman,  however  retiring.  History  and 
experience  show  that  these  practical  influences  are  often  the 
most  effective.  This  secret  society,  that  religious  association 
accomplish  more  by  simply  living  their  creed  day  by  day 
than  by  all  your  dogmatic  teaching.  What  extraordinary 
power  might  not  women  wield  if  they  were  all  animated  by 
one  spirit  urging  them  towards  a  common  end !  And  what 
a  noble  end — to  sustain  in  the  world  the  healthful  principles 
of  beauty,  to  fill  the  life  of  men  really  and  truly  with  things 
they  can  love  1  To  assign  to  art  this  social  mission,  to  carry 
out  in  regard  to  it  this  magnificent  part  of  "  patron,"  would 
be  to  vivify  it !  Vivify !  Let  us  say  rather  save  it  from 
itself  and  its  abuses !  Art  would  speedily  come  to  ruin  if 
the  whims,  fads,  and  prejudices  which  creep  into  the  studios 
were  not  held  in  check  by  the  necessity  of  reckoning  with 
the  individual  and  original  judgment  of  experts. 

Alas !  this  is  an  evil  of  our  present-day  society, — this 
awful  slough  of  commonplace  in  which  we  are  floundering — 
a  cause  or  an  effect  of  our  moral  degeneration  and  our  utter 
depravity  of  taste.  Big  houses  built  to  a  specification, 
decorated  at  so  much  a  yard,  invisibly  heated  on  some  patent 
system  you  never  heard  the  name  of,  peopled  by  lackeys 
whom  you  don't  know  and  only  see  when  they  open  the 
doors !  Dolly  women,  clothed  by  their  tailors,  a  pattern  or 
a  copy  of  their  neighbours,  with  the  habits  of  their  callers, 
the  ideas  of  the  men  they  know,  and  the  conversation 
of  their  grooms, — with  nothing  of  their  very  own;  not 
women  at  all !  People  in  olden  days  were  so  thoroughly 
persuaded  of  the  real  social  necessity  of  forming  "  amateurs  " 
that  the  old  Italian  educators  of  the  fifteenth  century 
wished  men  to  be  brought  up  with  that  end.  How  much 
more  women,  who  have  leisure  and  an  inborn  refinement! 
It  is  very  easy  to  demand  that  an  object,  however  simple 
and  unpretentious  one  may  suppose  it,  should  bear  a  stamp 
of  originality  and  good  taste.  Is  it  not  at  least  possible  to 
insist  on  simplicity  in  all  things,  to  banish  tinsel  and  brum- 
magem and  all  our  horrible  pretentious  magnificence  ? — to 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  389 

seek  breadth  instead  of  narrowness  ? — to  give  ourselves  the 
pure  free  air  of  the  Beautiful  ? — and  further,  to  put  writers 
and  artists  in  a  position  to  express  wholesome  things  with 
sincerity,  in  other  words,  to  see  things  healthily  ?  It  would 
be  foolish,  deplorable,  fatal  to  ask  them  to  express  what  they 
do  not  feel ;  but  they  must  be  made  to  feel  what  they  are  to 
paint.  There  is  here  an  important  task  to  accomplish,  and, 
to  a  certain  extent,  an  easy  one.  Everyone  knows  how 
sensitive  mental  toil,  particularly  if  excessive,  makes  the 
man  who  devotes  himself  to  it.  Taine  goes  so  far  as  to 
consider  us  the  direct  products  of  the  influences  that  en- 
compass us !  It  is  certain  that  we  borrow  much  from  our 
environment,  that  the  dulness  or  cheerfulness  of  the  sky,  for 
instance,  tinges  our  thoughts  with  very  different  colours;  how 
much  more  does  the  sadness  or  joy  of  those  whom  we  love  ! 
We  must  create  then  for  art  a  good  moral  atmosphere.  And 
when  Castiglione  writes :  "  God  is  only  seen  through  women," 
he  is  not  wrong  in  crying  up  this  spy-glass  of  his,  he  under- 
stands the  need  of  which  we  have  just  spoken ;  it  is  as  if, 
on  entering  a  cathedral,  he  were  inviting  us  to  look  into 
the  benitier,  as  if  he  were  showing  us  a  picture  in  a 
mirror.  There  are  women's  souls,  clear,  thrilling,  passionate, 
which  reflect  things  with  a  distinctness  and  a  vividness  of 
colour  that  would  otherwise  be  unsuspected.  And  without 
launching  out  into  speculations  as  lofty  as  those  of  Margaret 
of  France,  mere  "  women  amateurs  "  can  play  an  artistic  part 
of  the  first  order. 

As  a  rule,  Egerias  have  less  need  of  a  transcendent  intel- 
lect than  of  an  ample  provision  of  good  sense,  tact,  and 
above  all  patience,  for  they  may  look  forward  to  struggling 
against  terrible  temptations. 

The  intellectual  and  artistic  tribe  of  the  Renaissance  was 
no  better  than  any  other.  It  teemed  with  crotchety  species; 
it  included  the  usual  specimens — the  pedant,  the  man  with 
a  grievance,  the  ingenuous  prig,  the  strutting  peacock,  the 
matter-of-fact  aesthete  always  on  the  look-out  for  a  place  or 
a  pension.  The  proud  were  always  the  best,  and  the  least 
troublesome.  Play  their  cards  never  so  carefully,  women 
found  this  society  difficult  to  rule  ;  in  general,  to  govern 
well  you  have  only  to  make  your  subordinates  discontented, 
but  here  you  can  only  reign  on  condition  of  satisfying 
them. 


A 


390      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

The  first  step  in  the  Intellectual  tutelage  consisted  some« 
times  in  doing  little  material  services,  in  a  quite  friendly 
and  natural  way  (for  you  can't  live  on  love).  To  give  "  a 
few  crumbs  from  her  table,"  to  aid  the  friends  of  her  friends, 
to  look  after  orphans, — nothing  was  simpler  or  less  remark- 
able in  a  lady  :  many  men  would  have  done  as  much. 
Bembo,  badly  treated  by  a  farmer  who  owed  him  two  hun- 
dred and  thirty  ducats  in  "  broad  gold,"  did  not  hesitate  a 
moment  to  tear  Vittoria  Colonna  from  her  celestial  pre- 
occupations, to  beg  her  to  deal  with  this  little  matter.  To 
venture  on  this  ground,  however,  demanded  no  little  caution. 
Aretino  has  shown  how  easy  it  was  to  make  a  simple  expres- 
sion of  friendliness  an  opportunity  for  self-advertisement 
and  extortion.  What  a  perfect  master  he  was !  Titian 
applied  to  him  for  assistance  in  disposing  of  a  certain 
Annunciation  which  was  hanging  fire.  This  was  how 
Aretino  proceeded.  He  issued  a  flaming  advertisement, 
which  fairly  hooked  the  Empress  Isabella  of  Portugal,  who 
raked  up  from  her  husband's  cash-box  the  sum  demanded, 
two  thousand  crowns.  Aretino  instantly  unmasked  and 
offered  to  her  "  sacred  and  renowned  Majesty  his  inkpot  and 
pens  ";  in  plain  English,  asked  for  a  pension.  What  a  fine 
tooth-puller  he  would  have  made ! 

This  Aretino  fluttered  about  Vittoria  Colonna,  whom  he 
sought  to  capture  through  her  vanity.  "  Read  my  books," 
he  writes  to  her ;  "  read  the  Courtesan ;  you  will  see  if 
your  praises  were  not  always  at  the  point  of  my  pen." 

Everybody  knows  how  deeply  impressed  Aretino  always 
was  by  the  honours  of  the  marchioness,  and  when  his  style 
is  defective,  there  is  abundance  of  will  to  make  up  for  it. 
"  I  have  always  known  you  to  be  of  a  generous  spirit,  a 
magnanimous  nature,  an  active  mind,  an  absolute  virtue,  a 
noble  faith,  a  good  life.  If  it  were  not  so,  I  would  have 
told  you." 

That  was  the  beginning  of  the  oddest  of  correspondences. 
The  lady  naively  thought  that  she  could  content  the  monster 
with  fair  words ;  but  he  undeceived  her  by  the  present  of  a 
highly  seasoned  book,  with  an  explicit  request  for  commen- 
dation and  money.  So  far  as  commendation  was  concerned, 
Vittoria  thought  the  request  very  natural ;  but  the  excuse 
for  asking  money  she  thought  rather  thin.  However,  she 
promised  sixty  crowns,  and  even  fancied  she  was  only  acting 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  391 

the  great  lady  in  at  once  sending  him  thirty,  accompanied 
by  some  gentle  advice.  Aretino,  in  his  turn  deeply 
wounded,  did  not  quarrel  with  "  the  most  excellent  lady  "  ; 
he  confined  himself  to  dotting  the  i's.  "  I  have  to  consider 
the  tastes  of  our  contemporaries,"  he  said  ;  "  amusement  and 
scandal  are  the  only  things  that  pay ;  people  burn  with 
concupiscence,  as  you  burn  with  an  inextinguishable  angelic 
flame ;  for  you  sermons  and  evensong,  for  them  music  and 
the  play ! "  Why  write  serious  books  ?  He  had  sent  one 
to  Francis  I.  five  years  before,  and  was  still  awaiting 
acknowledgment;  he  had  just  addressed  his  Courtesan  to 
the  king,  and  by  return  of  post  received  a  gold  chain : 
"  after  all,  I  write  for  my  bread." 

Vittoria's  purse  remained  shut.  Our  fine  gentleman 
would  have  liked  to  return  the  thirty  crowns  ;  unluckily  he 
had  spent  some  of  them,  and  he  sent  back  only  some 
epigrams.  The  marchioness  suggested  that  he  should  give 
the  balance  to  the  poor,  hinting  that  no  worldly  pelf  was 
worth  as  much  as  the  love  of  God.  In  consideration  of  a 
recommendation  to  the  duchess  of  Urbino,  Aretino  con- 
descended to  keep  what  was  not  already  spent.  "  I  too,"  he 
writes  with  his  habitual  impertinence, — "I  too  am  a 
virtuous  and  Christian  beggar,  and  deserving  of  your  alms  ; 
I  do  not  think  the  poor  of  Ferrara,  of  whom  you  speak,  so 
poor  that  you  cannot  assist  one  of  the  poor  here,  since  for 
you  it  suffices  to  be  rich  in  spirit  through  the  grace  of 
Christ." 

This  little  dialogue  will  show  whether  women  needed  an 
angelic  soul  to  influence  for  good  rarely-gifted  men  on  whom 
pure  love  had  no  hold.  But  lofty  motives  must  have 
sustained  them ;  there  was  really  some  truth  in  Aretino's 
plea ;  yes,  fortune  and  glory  are  only  reached  by  devious 
paths.  Little  sketches  and  dialogues  in  the  taste  of  the  day 
paid  Aretino  very  well,  without  great  labour  on  his  part ;  a 
bookseller  in  the  Rue  St.  Jacques  at  Paris  made  his  fortune 
merely  by  retailing  them,  and  in  the  simplest  way.  He 
would  sell  to  a  lady  a  book  more  or  less  licentious, 
and  as  such  books  are  never  lent,  by  and  by  another  lady 
was  sure  to  pay  him  a  visit.  "Madam,  here's  one  that's 
much  worse,"  whispers  the  good  man  in  his  half  Italian 
jargon,  slipping  into  her  hand  another  very  expensive  book. 
It  was  just   the  same  in  the  artists'  studios;  Ledas  and 


392      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Venuses  went  off  like  hot  cakes,  but  Titian's  Annunciation 
gathered  dust  on  the  easel,  and  Carpaccio  had  infinite 
difficulty  in  selling  at  so  much  a  foot  a  religious  picture 
which  he  considered  one  of  his  best. 

In  France,  the  position  was  for  a  long  time  not  quite  so 
bad,  in  the  sense  that  the  men  of  letters,  excellent  fellows 
who  mixed  little  with  the  world,  esteemed  themselves 
infinitely  lucky  to  receive  after  solicitation  an  ecclesiastical 
benefice  which  made  them  independent.  One  historian 
becomes  incoherent  in  pouring  out  his  gratitude  because  a 
good  book,  the  fruit  of  many  years'  toil  and  travel,  has 
secured  him  a  life-annuity.  But  this  patriarchal  simplicity 
also  disappeared  in  the  end.  Publishers  had  to  cater  for 
the  public,  and  one  curious  affair  shows  us  how  they 
taught  authors  their  trade. 

Ve'rard,  the  famous  publisher  whose  magnificent  produc- 
tions are  still  a  joy  to  connoisseurs,  had  agreed  to  publish 
in  1500  a  book  by  Jean  Bouchet,  entitled  The  Foxes 
traversing  the  Perilous  Ways.  The  author  was  already 
received  at  court,  the  book  had  an  excellent  title,  piquant 
and  suggestive.  Nevertheless,  Ve'rard  began  by  erasing 
the  name  of  Bouchet,  and  substituting  that  of  Brandt,  a 
German  as  well  known  to  the  French  as  the  Scandinavians 
are  to-day,  and  whom,  moreover,  Bouchet  had  sought  to 
imitate. 

The  young  poet  durst  not  complain ;  however,  when  he 
read  the  volume  in  print,  he  noticed  that  Ve'rard  had 
unceremoniously  cut  out  entire  passages,  replacing  them 
with  passages  pillaged  from  right  and  left.  Bouchet  seized 
the  occasion  and  commenced  an  action ;  whereupon  Ve'rard, 
utterly  surprised  at  so  much  virtuous  indignation,  came  to 
terms  like  a  lord  ;  he  paid  over  a  good  round  sum,  and 
asked  for  no  receipt. 

Still,  this  sort  of  thing  was  rudimentary,  and,  apart  from 
the  question  of  private  morals,  harmless.  What  was  much 
less  inoffensive  was  the  passion  of  the  authors  themselves, 
once  they  had  learnt  their  cue,  for  the  novel,  obscene,  or 
sensational  effects  which  alone  secured  the  attention  of  the 
public.  They  speedily  got  level  with  the  Italians.  Ulrich 
von  Hiitten  gave  an  admirable  send-off  to  his  Epistles  of 
Obscure  Men  by  surreptitiously  putting  manuscript  copies 
in  circulation.     Bonaventure  des  Periers  almost  attained  to 


INTELLECTUAL   INFLUENCE  393 

Aretino's  skill.  The  alleged  official  destruction  of  his 
Cymbalwm  justified  a  clandestine  second  edition,  which  of 
course  was  priceless.  "Let  us  write  some  vile  thing,"  he 
says  in  one  of  his  dialogues,  "  and  we  shall  find  a  bookseller 
who'll  give  us  ten  thousand  crowns  for  the  copy."  That  is 
true ;  the  public  only  buys  and  circulates  and  really  cries 
up  the  books  it  contemns.  Many  notorious  books  of  that 
time,  which  we  take  seriously  to-day,  probably  had  no  other 
origin. 

An  author,  indeed,  has  a  perfect  right  to  desire  to  live  at 
the  expense  of  his  readers.  But,  after  all,  he  must  beware, 
in  matters  of  art,  of  commercial  inducements,  and  the  more 
indifference,  weakness,  and  unconcern  the  good  public  dis- 
plays, the  more  one  ought  to  thank  the  distinguished 
women  who  undertake  to  oppose  the  high  bids  of  natu- 
ralism or  extravagance.  They  do  not  always  succeed ;  they 
are  sometimes  the  dupes  of  noise  and  fashion  ;  let  us  forgive 
them  for  what  they  have  given  us,  for  the  sake  of  what  they 
have  spared  us.  In  these  days,  people  are  ready  enough  to 
abuse  the  old  system  of  patronage,  which  they  charge  with 
subverting  the  dignity  of  man ;  to  seek  something  from  the 
State,  from  a  member  of  the  Government,  seems  natural 
enough,  but  many  writers  would  think  themselves  humili- 
ated by  submission  to  any  social  patronage — which,  how- 
ever, society  is  not  eager  to  offer.  In  the  16th  century, 
among  intellectual  circles,  men  were  republicans  even  in  a 
monarchy:  they  were  not  enamoured  of  the  idea  of  the 
State.  And  private  patronage,  in  spite  of  its  imperfections, 
often  served  as  a  home  for  meditation,  a  shelter  for  inde- 
pendent men  who  preferred  high  thinking  to  popular 
applause ;  if  it  proved  deadening,  it  was  only  on  mediocre 
minds.  When  we  see  what  circumlocution,  and  what  subtle 
diplomacy  the  most  influential  princesses  had  to  employ  to 
gain  admission  to  Raphael's  or  Giovanni  Bellini's  studio, 
we  have  no  further  misgiving  as  to  the  disadvantages  of 
patronage.  For  a  lady  to  send  a  poet  in  distress  "a 
little  sugared  solace "  as  Des  Pe'riers  said,  and  with  so 
much  discretion  that  the  source  of  the  gift  remains 
unknown,  or  to  express  her  sympathy  in  the  form  of  a 
costly  present — in  this  we  see  nothing  to  impair  the 
dignity  of  man;  indeed,  to  be  frank,  it  appears  to  us 
delightful. 


394      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Moreover,  patronage  did  not  confine  itself  to  a  purely 
material  and  administrative  support,  as  the  State  necessarily 
does.  Besides  sending  a  present  in  season,  the  ladies  were 
still  more  ready  to  distribute  the  small  but  not  less  precious 
coin  of  tendernesses  and  compliments.  We  are  here  return- 
ing into  their  proper  domain,  and  an  intellectual  man 
capable  of  withstanding  this  influence  would  be  a  rarity. 
The  lady  author  who  praises  a  writer  smacks  a  little  of 
her  trade  ;  Veronica  Gambara,  after  overwhelming  Aretino 
with  rhapsodies,  cries  naively,  "Praised  by  you,  I  shall 
live  a  thousand  years ! "  It  was  "  Kae  me,  I'll  kae 
thee."  But  from  a  genuine  lady  of  rank,  eminent  and 
bountiful,  who  asks  for  nothing,  one  charming  phrase,  even 
though  it  be  qualified  and  far  from  flattering,  is  glory,  and 
a  glory  that  can  be  solicited  without  humiliation.  "  They 
say  I  am  an  aristocrat,"  wrote  Taine,  and  he  was,  as  we  all 
are  who  pretend  to  lead  men's  minds.  That  is  why  we  need 
this  sybaritism, — need  to  be  sustained  and  perchance  guided 
by  a  smile.  There  is  hardly  a  philosopher  or  poet  of  the 
16th  century  whose  pages  are  not  illuminated  and  gladdened 
by  the  smile  of  some  high-born  lady. 

How  can  we  analyse  this  smile  ?  We  could  not  without 
seeing  it,  and  we  only  know  it  very  indirectly.  We  divine 
it  under  an  infinitely  caressing  word;  in  a  pretty  diminutive, 
"  my  little  sister,"  "  wifie  " ;  in  an  affectionate  superlative  ; 
Vittoria  Colonna  calls  her  friend  Dolce  "  Dolcissimo,"  and 
speaks  to  him,  with  a  quite  natural  grace  and  without 
apparent  exaggeration,  of  his  "  divine  sonnets,"  for  which 
she  has  not  words  enough  to  thank  him  ;  with  her  friend 
Bembo  she  permits  herself  to  gush  forth  familiarly  in  artless 
enthusiasm.  What  a  curious  litany  is  the  correspondence 
addressed  to  that  "very  magnificent"  rogue  Aretino,  who 
highly  valued  the  honour  done  him,  and  took  all  possible 
advantage  of  it!  The  writers  are  the  marchioness  of 
Mantua,  with  her  grace  and  reserve ;  Mary  of  Aragon, 
"  the  sovereign  marchioness  of  Avalos,"  on  particularly  good 
terms  with  him  because  she  has  not  altogether  given  up 
hope  of  turning  him  into  a  monk  ;  the  duchess  of  Urbino, 
warm,  gushing,  who  calls  him  "  my  magnificent  most  loving 
lover  " ;  then  the  good  ladies  who  have  lost  their  hearts  to 
the  man  of  the  hour,  who  take  him  as  he  is,  a  scoundrel 
but   famous,   and   who   write    to    him   as  the    "  fount    of 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  395 

eloquence,  astonishiDg,  admirable,  miracle  of  nature,  most 
virtuous,  (yes,  you  are !)  most  wise,  my  father,  my 
brother."1 

The  relations  of  a  lady  with  her  protege's  were  established 
by  slow  degrees,  or  simply  through  her  chancing  to  hear 
of  a  work  that  bespoke  her  practical  interest.  The  lady 
learns  through  her  secret  agents  that  a  book  is  about 
to  appear,  in  prose  perhaps,  perhaps  a  history ;  she  wishes 
to  have  the  first  peep  at  it ;  the  author,  taken  by  surprise, 
makes  excuses  with  profound  modesty,  but  sends  his  manu- 
script all  the  same ;  and  the  ice  is  broken,  the  circuit  is 
complete.  The  connection  will  continue  under  various 
forms  j  the  writer  tells  her  in  confidence  of  his  various 
works,  then  in  his  turn  begins  to  beat  the  coverts  for  talents 
of  hers  that  are  lying  concealed.  In  return  the  lady 
announces  his  work  urbi  et  orbi,  and  takes  his  friends 
to  her  heart.  A  real  intimacy  is  set  up  between  them,  some- 
times so  entirely  spiritual  that  they  never  even  see  each  other. 
Thus,  before  publishing  his  Courtier,  Castiglione  submitted 
the  manuscript  to  Vittoria  Colonna  under  the  seal  of  the 
profoundest  secrecy.  Vittoria  kept  it  rather  a  long  time, 
and  when  at  last  she  had  to  return  it,  she  excused  herself 
very  prettily,  being  still,  as  she  says,  only  half-way  through 
the  second  part:  she  omits  to  add  that  she  had  lent  it 
rather  indiscreetly.  She  has  no  suggestion  to  make,  except 
perhaps  that  he  should  not  give  the -names  of  the  ladies 
whose  beauty  he  is  praising  in  a  book  intended  for  the 
public.  Otherwise  she  applauds  everything  with  all  her 
soul :  the  freshness  of  the  subject,  the  refinement,  elegance 
and  animation  of  the  style.  She  is  horribly  jealous  of  the 
persons  whose  words  are  quoted  in  such  a  book,  even  if 
they  are  dead.  As  to  the  passages  on  the  virtue  and 
impeccable  chastity  of  women,  she  adores  them  and  con- 
siders herself,  as  a  woman,  honoured  by  them  ;  but  on  this 
point  she  prefers  not  to  say  all  that  is  in  her  mind. 

With  Michelangelo  she  exercises  the  same  supervision; 
she    begs    him,    in    a    charming    note,    to    send    her    a 

1  Very  few  poets  had  the  audacity  of  Clement  Marot,  who,  harassed  by 
his  creditors,  went  a-begging  to  the  Queen  of  Navarre,  beslavering  her 
with  love  the  while :  she  replied  with  a  dixain.  He  acknowledged  receipt 
of  it  ironically,  saying  that  on  the  strength  of  her  verses  his  creditors  have 
called  him  "Monsieur,"  and  have  permitted  him  to  borrow  again,  which  he 
proceeded  to  do. 


396      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

crucifix  he  is  working  at,  and  to  come  and  have  a 
chat.1 

Far  from  dissembling  the  patronage  of  which  they  were 
the  objects,  the  writers  and  artists  boasted  of  it.  In  all 
sincerity  they  believed  women  to  have  been  created  and 
sent  into  the  world  to  inspire  them  with  intelligence.  If 
they  had  their  portraits  painted  seated  in  their  studies,  it 
was  not  in  the  midst  of  a  litter  of  books,  weapons,  or 
carpets,  nor  even  with  an  air  of  deep  thought  or  abstraction ; 
it  was  simply  as  natural  men,  writing  beside  a  little  Cupid 
who  serves  them  as  tutelary  deity.  It  was  accepted  with- 
out question  that  a  woman's  hand  must  shake  the  bough  to 
set  the  mind  winging  its  flight.  "  My  mind,  my  strength, 
my  Pallas,  is  Lydia,"  exclaims  Catti.2  Antonio  de  Gouvea8 
declares  that  he  had  no  suspicion  of  what  was  in  him  till 
the  fair-haired  Catherine  of  Bauffremont  discovered  him  as 
one  discovers  a  treasure  under  the  snow:  "I  should  have 
thought  the  snow  cold,  but  lo !  it  was  fire."  Michelangelo 
sings  the  same  song  in  every  key :  "  Through  your  fair  eyes 
I  see  a  tender  light  which  my  blinded  eyes  could  not  have 
seen.  .  .  .  Wingless,  I  fly  with  your  wings;  through  your 
quick  spirit  I  am  unceasingly  uplifted  towards  heaven.  .  .  . 
I  have  no  other  will  than  yours ;  in  your  soul  my  thought 
has  birth ;  my  words  are  moulded  in  your  mind.  I  am  like 
the  moon,  who  never  shines  in  the  sky  but  as  reflecting  the 
brilliance  of  the  sun;"  and  he  adds  this  profound  saying: 
"  O  Lady,  who  by  fire  and  water  refinest  and  purgest  the 
soul  for  happy  days,  ah  !  grant  me  to  return  never  more  to 
myself!"  That  was  the  simple  method  by  which  many 
women  in  those  days  directed  the  minds  of  men. 

We  must  not  exaggerate:  we  do  not  pretend  that  you 
must  everywhere  chercher  la  femme,  that  without  her 
nothing  is  possible,  that  she  has  confiscated  the  key  to  all 

1 "  My  heart's  friend,  I  beg  you  to  send  me  the  crucifix  for  a  short  time, 
even  if  it  is  not  far  advanced,  so  that  I  may  show  it  to  the  gentlemen  of 
the  Most  Reverend  Cardinal  of  Mantua.  And  if  you  are  not  very  busy 
to-day,  come  and  talk  to  me  at  any  hour  that  suits  you. — Yours  to  com- 
mand, the  Marchioness  of  Pescara." 

8  [Usually  known  as  Lydius  Cattus.  His  Latin  poems  in  praise  of  Lydia 
appeared  at  Venice  in  1502.] 

3  [A  Portuguese  writer  (1505-1566)  who  spent  the  most  of  his  life  in 
France  and  taught  philosophy  at  Paris.  He  is  chiefly  notable  for  his 
crushing  reply  to  Ranius's  attacks  on  Aristotle.] 


INTELLECTUAL   INFLUENCE  397 

human  learning.  On  the  contrary,  she  has  done  little  for 
the  exact  sciences ;  she  has  contented  herself  with  piercing 
the  heavens  or  clambering  in  somehow  or  other.  But  the 
great  kindred  of  impressionable  beings,  every  man  who  has 
lived  by  beauty  and  sought  after  happiness,  from  philo- 
sopher to  artist,  from  talker  to  poet,  every  man  capable  of 
feeling  an  emotion,  has  owed  much  to  women.  "  Emotion, 
which  is  only  an  accident  in  the  life  of  man,  is  it  not 
woman's  whole  existence  ? "  And  in  such  a  matter,  can  a 
better  judge  be  found  ?  Woman  is  freer  from  prejudice 
than  man :  "  she  does  not  need  to  give  abstract  reasons  for 
her  enthusiasms:  her  passion,  her  pity  well  up  spontane- 
ously while  man  is  still  discussing  and  deliberating.  And 
in  so  doing,  she  almost  always  sees  more  truly." l 

Women  are  the  eternal  guardians  of  the  Beautiful,  and 
it  cannot  be  said  that  in  this  respect  the  Renaissance 
introduced  any  absolutely  new  idea.  Long  before,  noble 
chatelaines  used  frequently  to  shelter  under  their  roofs  the 
churchman  employed  to  illuminate  their  Books  of  Hours, 
and  princesses  encouraged  the  ballad-monger  and  the 
image-vendor.  Women  have  always  cultivated  their  souls ! 
But  it  was  a  new  thing  to  devote  this  fervour  and  enthu- 
siasm to  a  religion  of  beauty.  In  other  directions,  the 
women  have  been  condemned ;  but  their  aesthetic  influence 
has  seemed  legitimate;  and,  in  a  word,  "the  works  they 
patronised,  the  chateaux  built  for  them,  have  endured, 
when  the  doughty  deeds  of  knights  on  the  battlefield  have 
hardly  left  a  trace." 

1  Paul  Bourget,  address  in  the  French  Academy,  Dec.  9,  1897. 


CHAPTER  IV 

INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE 

(Continued) 

The  influence  of  women  declared  itself  in  certain  well- 
marked  results.  In  the  first  place,  it  led  to  the  germination 
of  what  may  be  called  a  technical  literature:  that  is,  of 
works  intended  to  prove  the  legitimacy  and  necessity  of 
feminine  sway. 

The  classical  type  of  this  literature  is  Boccaccio's  book, 
Of  Illustrious  Women.  Boccaccio  lived  in  a  backward  age, 
which  is  the  excuse  for  certain  epigrams  of  his  ;  but  he 
remained  none  the  less  the  women's  favourite  writer,  because 
he  had  had  the  courage  to  ransack  antiquity,  to  quarrel 
with  Virgil,  to  extol  Dido,  and  to  collect  for  the  first  time 
a  multitude  of  immortal  examples — Cleopatra,  Lucrece, 
Semiramis,  Sappho,  Athaliah.  Nothing,  therefore,  was  safer 
than  to  republish,  amplify,  and  imitate  his  work  in  every 
shape  and  form,  and  the  opportunity  was  not  lost,  God 
knows ! 

In  addition  to  this  Boccaccian  literature,  which  was 
already  extensive,  we  must  note  the  appearance  of  a 
numerous  family  of  semi-philosophical,  semi-historical 
writings,  devoted  to  the  glorification  of  the  reigning  sex ; 
winning  causes  never  lack  defenders.  The  names  of  Bruni, 
Portio,  Lando,  Domenichi,  and  many  others  would  certainly 
merit  a  page  in  the  annals  of  feminism ;  Benedetto  da 
Cesena  specially  demonstrates  the  honour  and  virtue  of 
women,  Capella  their  excellence,  Luigini  their  beauty.  The 
feature  common  to  the  most  of  these  works  is  that  while 
claiming  to  be  very  lofty,  abstract  and  impersonal  specula- 
tions, they  are  all  the  time  aimed  more  or  less  covertly  at  the 

398 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  399 

heart  of  one  woman  in  particular.  If  Firenzuola  discourses 
like  Plato  himself,  it  is  because  he  has  the  countess  of 
Vernio  as  his  ideal.  Nifo  compiled  his  treatise  On  the 
Court  under  the  auspices  of  the  prince  and  princess  of 
Salerno,  but  his  ardour  was  more  especially  inspired  by 
the  charms  of  Phausina  Rhea.  Ravisius  Textor  wrote  his 
Memorable  and  Illustrious  Women  because  there  happened 
to  be  one  Jeanne  de  Vignacourt,  wife  of  President  Gaillard. 
We  ourselves  ought  to  have  conformed  to  this  fascinating 
custom  and  to  have  inscribed  a  lady's  name  on  the  title- 
page  of  this  book ;  but  we  are  writing  for  fair  readers  of  the 
20th  century. 

Except  in  size,  the  books  we  allude  to  were  as  like  as 
two  peas.  Che'nier  might  well  have  called  them  "old 
thoughts  new  versified."  To  see  one  is  to  see  a  thousand. 
The  upshot  of  them  all  is  the  equality,  if  not  the  superiority, 
of  woman  in  regard  to  man.  To  give  an  idea  of  them  it 
will  be  enough  to  mention  one,  of  no  great  renown  (it  has 
never  been  printed,  and  no  complete  manuscript  exists,  to 
our  knowledge),  but  linking  the  names  of  two  personages  of 
the  first  rank.  It  was  written  for  Vittoria  Colonna  by 
her  cousin  the  famous  Cardinal  Pompeo  Colonna,  vice- 
chancellor  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 

The  Cardinal  begins  by  very  gravely  preparing  to  crush 
under  a  weight  of  learning  various  anti-feminist  proposi- 
tions, almost  all  drawn  from  the  antiquated  repertoire  of 
the  Middle  'Ages;  for  instance,  is  woman  an  imperfect 
animal,  an  inferior  being,  unfit  for  public  duties,  good  for 
nothing  but  to  gad  about  and  commit  indiscretions  ?  Is  it 
not  the  custom,  even  in  everyday  talk,  to  say  "  men  "  when 
meaning  the  human  species  ?  Are  not  the  Bible  and  Plato 
agreed  in  teaching  that  man  is  the  prototype  of  creation, 
the  receiver  and  the  transmitter  of  life  ?  Having  settled 
these  and  a  few  other  questions,  the  cardinal  proceeds  to 
his  demonstration  of  the  merits  of  womankind. 

He  finds  it  much  to  the  point  to  invoke  evidence  from 
the  pagan  world.  He  sets  defiling  before  us  the  Sauro- 
mathian  women,  the  warrior  Amazons,  the  women  of  the 
Balearic  isles,  every  one  of  them  esteemed  equal  to  three  or 
four  men  in  the  exchanges  of  war;  the  Lycian  dames, 
through  whom  nobility  was  transmitted,  and  the  Celtic 
ladies,   who   exercised   the   functions  of  diplomatists  and 


400     THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

arbitrators.  On  this  evidence  he  declares  himself  an  out- 
and-out  feminist ;  an  advocate  for  the  admission  of  women 
to  all  occupations ;  gymnastics  and  military  service,  com- 
mended by  Plato,  have  no  terrors  for  him ;  he  would  have 
been  an  enthusiastic  apostle  of  cycling  for  both  sexes.  If 
some  timorous  objector  hints  at  the  moral  perils  of  launching 
women  into  public  life,  he  almost  angrily  laughs  the  objec- 
tion to  scorn,  zestfully  seizing  the  occasion  to  show  what  men 
are  good  for  when  left  entirely  to  themselves.  His  type  is 
the  strong  woman,  sure  of  herself  and  cased  in  the  armour 
of  her  modesty,  the  energetic  woman  who  fends  off  the  light 
strokes  of  stratagem  as  well  as  the  heavy  strokes  of  violence, 
the  woman  who  is  generous  and  just,  with  something  of  that 
young  Spartan  captive  who  had  the  force  of  soul  to  feign 
love  for  her  vanquisher  and  to  persuade  him  with  her 
caresses  that  she  was  endowed  with  a  marvellous  secret  of 
invulnerability,  and  who  thus  got  her  head  cut  off. 
"  Heaven  above  ! "  ends  the  cardinal  suddenly,  "  where  could 
one  find  a  more  accomplished  type  of  strength  and 
magnanimity  than  yourself,  O  Vittoria !  It  is  you,  you,  O 
ideal  of  noble  virtues,  who  sustained  your  husband,  guided 
him,  exalted  him !  "  Pompeo  has  so  many  things  to  attend 
to  that  he  excuses  himself  from  here  working  out  this 
theme ;  he  begs  the  marchioness  to  accept  his  modest  little 
work,  the  homage  of  an  ardent  and  sincere  affection. 

We  are  bound  to  add  that  women  showed  themselves 
duly  grateful ;  this  kind  of  literature  was  not  love's  labour 
lost,  and  many  insignificant  men  found  in  it  the  road  to 
success.  A  Bohemian,  half  magian  and  wizard  (common 
enough  in  those  days),  a  soldier  as  well  as  a  "doctor  in 
both  faculties,"  Cornelius  Agrippa,  was  elected  professor  of 
Cabala  at  the  University  of  Dole.  Not  long  afterwards  he 
dedicated  to  his  sovereign,  Margaret  the  regent  of  the 
Netherlands,  a  bulky  book  on  the  Preeminence  of  the 
Feminine  Sex,  a  learned  and  convincing  work,  though  in 
places  somewhat  gross.  The  chaste  Margaret  was  no  more 
shocked  than  Vittoria  Colonna  appeared  to  be  angered  at 
some  indecorous  details  in  the  work  of  cardinal  Pompeo. 
She  obtained  a  good  appointment  for  Agrippa,  and  later  on, 
though  a  good  deal  had  happened  in  the  interim,  she  gave 
him  the  title  of  imperial  historiographer  to  Charles  V. 

Apart  from   these   special   productions,   which    in   date 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  401 

almost  all  belong  to  the  early  days  of  the  decadence,  the 
influence  women  exercised  on  intellectual  productivity  ran 
through  two  very  different  channels. 

The  primitive  Frenchwomen,  who  loved  breadth  and 
vigour,  the  women  of  passion,  mistrusted  works  of  mere 
imagination ;  they  sought  for  truth.  Philosophy  and  history 
were  their  intellectual  pabulum,  owing  to  their  taste  for  the 
clear  light  of  truth,  however  solidly,  even  heavily  expressed. 
To  become  wrapped  up,  entangled,  lost  in  art  and  mawkish 
sentiment  appeared  to  them  the  proof  of  inferior  minds ; 
to  them  the  supreme  art  was  to  be  without  art ;  they  loved 
the  beautiful  simplicity  and  impressiveness  natural  to  minds 
that  have  mastered  the  subjects  with  which  they  are  dealing, 
and  are  masters  of  themselves. 

But  these  women  were  not  numerous,  and  are  soon  lost 
sight  of.  Nor  were  there  many  men  capable  of  meeting 
their  views. 

History  and  philosophy  had  their  charlatans  who  brought 
discredit  on  them  sooner  or  later — pedants,  perpetrators  of 
futile  and  vapid  euphuisms,  not  to  speak  of  fantastics  and 
high  genealogists  like  Feron,  who  carefully  describes  the 
armorial  bearings  of  Adam. 

Lemaire  de  Beiges,  who  worked  constantly  under  the  eye 
of  grave  women  and  dedicated  to  them  all  his  writings  of 
whatever  description,  even  a  Treatise  on  Ancient  and 
Modern  Funeral  Ceremonies,  is  one  of  those  who  carried 
erudition  too  far.  He  has  a  superb  equipment  of  learnings 
which  he  displayed  with  a  magnificent  and  conscientious 
tediousness;  how  could  Margaret  of  Austria,  Anne  of 
Brittany,  and  Claude  of  France  distrust  a  person  of  so 
excellent  an  appearance !  Lemaire  loses  no  opportunity  of 
rendering  homage  to  the  sex ;  if  none  occurs  naturally,  he 
invents  one.  He  cites  only  women  of  beauty  and  intelli- 
gence.. In  the  service  of  Anne  of  France  he  extols  honour 
and  virtue :  with  Anne  of  Brittany  he  sings  the  past  history 
of  her  realm;1  and  when  all  is  said  and  done  he  was 
nothing  but  a  dull  courtier.     And  yet  he  made  his  mark. 

Philosophy  comes  better  out  of  the  ordeal.  It  was  not 
divorced  from  literature,  and,  like  the  literature,  it  wore  a 
pleasing  and    cheerful    aspect.      Laughter   was    then   the 

1  He  undertook  to  write  for  her  the  Annals  of  Brittany,  and  had  an  idea 
of  a  history  of  the  Greeks  and  Turks  for  the  same  princess. 

2c 


402      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

fashion,  even  in  the  most  serious  clubs.  The  Florentine 
academy  flourished  under  the  title  of  the  1  Academy  of  the 
Damp,"  each  of  its  members  bearing  the  name  of  some  fish  ; 
and  when,  as  pretty  generally  happens,  its  founder,  Lasca, 
was  expelled,  he  established  another  academy,  under  quite  as 
facetious  a  name,  the  "  Academy  of  Bran,"  the  Dellacrusca.1 

We  have  shown  what  an  unrivalled  position  philosophy 
obtained  in  the  society  of  that  epoch  ;  many  people  preferred 
it  to  history  because  they  fancied  they  were  more  certain  of 
finding  truth  in  it.  They  found  it  also  of  very  practical 
utility ;  thanks  to  some  familiarity  with  the  ideal,  more  than 
one  philosophical  husband  could  say,  "All  is  lost,  save 
honour."  From  the  moment  when  the  women  began  to 
subsist  on  philosophy,  there  was  a  run  upon  theoretical 
wisdom.  Happy  the  man  whose  academic  discourses  sug- 
gested a  comparison  with  Plato,  or  merely  with  Pythagoras! 
Philosophy  bore  everywhere  the  torch  of  happiness ;  it  gave 
props  to  faith,  and  represented  Paradise  as  the  sum 
and  crown  of  aesthetic  joy ;  the  noble  bishop  Guevara 
exclaims  with  enthusiasm,  "  God  was  the  first  lover  in  the 
world ;  it  is  from  him  that  we  have  learnt  to  love " ;  and 
grave  professors  on  formal  occasions  waxed  eloquent  on  the 
mystery  of  love.  Cornelius  Agiippa  opened  a  course  of 
lectures  on  Plato's  Symposium,  with  this  declamation :  *  I 
come  to  expound  to  you  the  doctrine  set  forth  by  the 
divine  Plato  in  his  Symposium,  on  love.  My  discourse  has 
Love  for  its  author  and  cause ;  I  myself,  inflamed  by  the 
beams  of  love,  preach  Love  to  you.  Far  from  here,  far  from 
this  respectable  lecture-room,  let  others,  stuck  fast  in  the 
miry  paths  of  the  world,  creatures  of  Bacchus  or  of  the  god 
of  gardens,  trample  this  divine  gift,  love,  in  the  mud,  like 
dogs  or  swine.  You,  my  pure  men,  votaries  of  Diana 
and  Pallas,  hail  to  you !  Come  and  lend  attentive  ears  to 
this  divine  mystery." 

Filippo  Beroaldo  goes  farther;  he  undertakes  "without 
false  shame  "  to  expound  to  his  young  pupils  the  philosophy 
of  Propertius :  "  Yes,"  he  exclaims  with  fervour,  "  we  shall 
give  praise  to  love,  the  one  god  laudable  above  all  things, 
pre-eminently  laudable ;  we  shall  show  you  that  the  poetry 
and  the  poets  of  love  consort  with  the  gravest  professors, 

1  [So  called  because  their  aim  was  to  purify  the  Italian  tongue  by  sifting 
the  wheat  from  the  chaff.] 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  403 

and  that  this  sort  of  poem  is  worthy  to  serve  as  subject  for 
a  public  and  complete  course  in  a  university  of  letters." 
And  forthwith  we  see  him  occupied  for  a  whole  year  in 
drawing  a  distinction  between  the  work  and  the  writer, 
conformably  to  the  aphorism  of  Catullus,  that  a  poet  may 
perfect^  well  pass  for  a  decent,  chaste,  and  pious  man, 
though  his  works  may  not  have  the  same  reputation,  pro- 
vided they  have  salt  and  wit.  Ovid  also  had  I  aid :  "  My 
pen  is  lascivious,  but  my  life  is  not."  Beroaldo  insists  very 
strongly  on  this  tutelary  principle,  and  to  add  force  to 
his  demonstration  he  casually  reads  the  broadest  passages  in 
Plato  and  the  Scriptures :  "  Yet,"  he  adds  proudly,  "  every- 
body reads  the  Bible." 

In  addition  to  disseminating  thus  the  doctrine  of  Love,  the 
religion  of  the  Beautiful  naturally  delighted  in  beauty  of 
form,  and  gave  a  very  decided  lead  on  this  point  also. 

In  the  first  place,  it  brought  into  high  favour  a  kind  of 
literature  which,  for  brevity's  sake,  we  shall  call  the  litera- 
ture of  conversation.  There  is  nothing  surprising  in  this, 
since  conversation  served  at  once  as  a  means  and  an  end, 
and  appeared  to  be  the  realisation  of  Platonic  happiness. 
Those  who  had  the  misfortune  to  be  writers  took  at  least  all 
possible  precautions  not  to  show  it,  and  certainly  many 
authors  of  the  dialogues,  novels,  and  various  narratives  of 
the  time  committed  them  to  paper  only  to  keep  a  permanent 
record  of  actual  conversations,  or  at  any  rate  because,  in 
temporary  distress  for  want  of  someone  to  talk  to,  they 
found  themselves  reduced  to  taking  up  their  pens  to  keep 
themselves  in  practice.  The  critics  of  our  day,  who  prefer 
to  say  their  say  by  themselves,  in  the  form  of  lectures  or 
articles,  are  disposed  to  see  in  this  dialogical  method  a  trick 
of  rhetoric ;  they  regard  the  dialogues  of  Plato  in  the  same 
light,  and  we  see  very  learned  platonists  quoting  indifferently 
the  thoughts  of  the  various  speakers  as  the  thoughts  of  Plato 
himself,  without  remarking  that  in  the  same  dialogue  the 
different  speakers  give  sincere  expression  to  different  ideas. 
The  majority  of  16  th  century  dialogues  are  real  conversations,1 
and  claim  to  be  more  or  less  accurate  notes  of  both  sides, 
with  the  perfect  liberty  of  movement  impossible  in  didactic 
exposition.  Bembo,  in  his  capacity  as  an  eminent  talker, 
has  accepted  the  responsibility  for  more  than  one  written 

1  Castiglione  got  Bembo  to  revise  the  speeches  he  attributed  to  him. 


404      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

dialogue,  And  thus,  the  practice  was  quite  the  reverse  of 
that  which  obtains  in  our  drawing-rooms  to-day,  where,  if 
the  conversation  happens  to  rise  above  the  commonplace,  we 
borrow  our  ideas  from  the  morning's  leading  article  or  the 
last  successful  play ;  in  those  days  the  drawing-room  made 
the  book — a  system  extremely  favourable  to  the  influence  of 
women. 

The  masterpiece  of  this  literature  of  conversation  is  un- 
questionably the  Courtier  of  Castiglione,  of  which  more 
than  eighty  editions  or  translations  are  known,  and  which 
retained  almost  undiminished  popularity  for  more  than  a 
century. 

In  proportion,  however,  as  women  fell  into  mere  fashion- 
able sensibility,  the  literature  they  inspired  became  an  art  of 
form  rather  than  of  thought,  and  soon  there  was  no  longer 
room  for  anything  but  poetry.  Poetry  flooded  everything. 
We  are  not  speaking  here,  of  course,  of  the  high  heroic 
poetry  intended  for  robust  appetites :  people  revelled  in 
the  luxury  of  a  beautiful  musical  phrase  which  soothed 
without  awakening  emotion,  in  a  sort  of  splendid  unreality, 
in  glittering  frivolities  calculated  to  give  a  fillip  to  con- 
versation. 

There  was  high  honour  for  the  improvisatore  who,  in  the 
decorated  hall  of  the  chateau,  whilst  in  the  streets  there 
arose  a  vague  hubbub  of  music,  song,  or  passing  feet,  could 
on  the  spur  of  the  moment  chisel  or  crystallise  a  happy 
thought,  and  shoot  out  his  little  verse,  light  as  an  arrow, 
brilliant  as  a  sky-rocket.  Such  a  man  was  feted  every- 
where, and  saw  a  welcome  smiling  in  every  eye.  Into  a 
goblet  of  rare  crystal  he  poured,  as  it  were,  but  one  drop 
of  elixir,  but  it  was  an  elixir  that  exhilarated;  he  was 
master  of  his  world.  With  a  tender  or  witty  verse  a  man 
could  do  anything.  A  phrase  of  Bembo's  is  very  typi- 
cal. When  Vittoria  Colonna  had  just  lost  her  husband, 
he  told  her  that  the  flood  of  sonnets  on  that  occasion 
had  reconciled  him  to  the  age !  Vittoria  Colonna  herself, 
whose  ideas  were  of  quite  a  different  order  in  theological 
matters,  wrote  to  a  prelate  :  "  I  received  your  letter  this 
morning,  and  in  your  madrigals  I  saw  the  force  of 
truth."  Poetry  was  so  much  a  maid  of  all  work  that 
a  luckless  ambassador,  at  his  wit's  end  for  a  new  way 
of  asking  for  his  arrears  of  salary,  ended  by  addressing 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  405 

a  dispatch  in  verse  to  his  sovereign,  Margaret  of  Austria. 
Another  dropped  into  poetry  in  his  dispatches  with 
the  simple  object  of  paying  court  to  his  princess.  A 
business  agent,  instructed  to  send  some  information  to 
Vittoria  Colonna,  declares  that,  writing  to  so  illustrious 
a  lady,  he  hardly  knows  what  he  is  about,  and  that  he 
cannot  refrain  from  writing  in  verse  :  hitherto,  he  says,  his 
higher  faculties  have  been  dormant,  and  the  name  of  the 
marchioness  has  roused  them  to  activity.  Admirable  effect 
of  feminine  influence,  galvanising  even  auctioneers'  clerks  ! 
Ladies  wrote  in  verse  to  their  children,  sent  their  friends 
verses — sometimes,  it  must  be  confessed,  borrowed.1 

In  all  this  wealth  of  poetical  production  the  sonnet  ranked 
as  the  most  profitable,  because,  thanks  to  its  terse  and 
sparkling  form,  it  did  well  in  a  glass  case  among  a  woman's 
little  love  trophies.  It  admirably  hit  the  tastes  of  the  ladies; 
it  was  short  and  concise,  it  centred  on  one  idea,  and  allowed 
the  most  diverse  and  fugitive  sentiments  to  find  expression. 

In  these  days  we  cannot  really  understand  the  success 
which  certain  occasional  verses  met  with,  for  example,  the 
rhapsodies  of  Molinet2  whenever  Margaret  of  Austria  took 
her  walks  abroad.  These  gems  of  other  days  have  the 
same  effect  on  us  as  pearls  removed  from  their  settings, 
lying  robbed  of  all  their  lustre  on  a  dealer's  counter.  For 
that  matter,  they  never  had  the  glow  of  passion ;  all  that 
was  asked  of  them  was  to  show  a  certain  uniformity  ot 
sparkle,  and  they  were  strung  one  after  another  in  the 
belief  that  so  many  languidly  gleaming  brilliants  would  in 
the  long  run  form  a  pretty  set.  What  charming  and  un- 
exceptionable ornaments  were  the  waggeries  of  Saint-Gelais 
or  of  Michel  d'Amboise,  or  the  "Hundred  and  Five  Love 
Rondeaux "  published  by  M.  Tross,  or  the  Hecatomphile 
{i.e.  the  hundred  loves),  and  so  many  more  ! 3     Such  writers 

1  The  Spanish  canzone,  inserted  by  Lucretia  Borgia  in  her  letters  to 
Bembo,  are  perhaps  not  her  own. 

2  [Her  librarian.] 

'Castiglione,  that  arbiter  of  taste,  devotes  six  pages  of  excellent  Latin 
distiches  to  dissuade  his  lady  from  going  to  the  sea-baths.  He  gives  a 
charming  description  of  the  sea  monsters  which  advance  towards  the  girls, 
not  only  to  fling  them  as  food  to  the  fishes,  but  to  get  them  into  their  em- 
brace, and  so  on.  "Let  us  go  rather,"  he  sighs,  "towards  the  gentle  river, 
in  the  thick  shade,  among  the  flowers.  Perfumed,  crowned  with  our 
favourite  colours,  we  will  let  the  water  lave  thy  snowy  feet,  .  .  .  the 
zephyr  will  lay  bare  thy  marble   flanks.  ...  0,  dear  soul  of  mine,  tho 


406      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

had  ringing  in  their  ears  an  air  from  Ovid  1  or  Petrarch,  a 
mawkish  air,  with  all  the  sublimity  of  commonplace, 
already  utilised  a  thousand  times ;  and  they  continued  to 
grind  out  the  song  of  the  "exquisite"  bard  of  Laura,  to  steal 
from  it,  comment  on  it,  torture  it,  raising  their  eyes  to 
heaven  like  Greuze's  girls ;  and  so  they  thought  themselves 
deities.  "  I  hope,"  cries  Aretino,  with  a  burst  of  laughter, 
"  that  the  soul  of  Petrarch  is  not  tormented  in  the  other 
world  as  it  is  in  this ! "  They  were  a  long  way  from  the 
vigorous  inspirations  craved  by  Pompeo  Colonna.  Some 
repining  souls  made  secret  reservations  against  the  seduc- 
tive force  of  this  sensibility.  Vittoria  Colonna  and  Isabella 
d'Este  kept  a  corner  of  their  heart  for  Dante ;  but  what 
could  they  do  to  stem  the  tide  ?  They  tried,  very  clumsily. 
In  France  a  league  of  terrible  pedants  was  formed, — 
"  skimmers  of  Latin,"  who,  to  separate  themselves  from  the 
vulgar,  employed  a  sort  of  pretentious  and  intolerable  jargon. 
In  Italy,  Spagnuoli  shouted  himself  hoarse  in  thundering 
against  the  Franco-Italian  alliance,  and  all  in  vain. 
Capilupi,2  still  less  adroit,  committed  the  unpardonable  folly 
of  finding  fault  with  the  women.     At  bottom  he  was  right. 

It  was  women's  duty  to  warn  the  world  off  so  disastrous 
a  reef.  Unhappily,  in  consequence  of  that  eternal  timidity 
and  that  want  of  energy  which  were  to  kill  their  influence, 
they  allowed  themselves  to  be  utterly  bewitched.  It  was 
written  that  they  should  be  able  to  conquer,  but  not  to 
profit  by  victory :  that,  once  mistresses  of  the  world,  feeble- 
ness would  regain  the  upper  hand;  that  being  no  longer 
under  the  spur  of  passion,  they  would  come  to  a  stand 
before  a  sweetstuff  shop. 

The  masterpiece  of  these  pretentious  confectioneries  was 
a  monument  of  verse  erected  to  the  glory  of  some  particular 
lady. 

woodland  gods  will  feel  the  sting  of  my  love,  the  very  water  of  the  river 
will  boil  with  my  flame  :  let  no  one  know  whither  we  bend  our  steps  !  The 
crowd  strips  rocks  and  woods  of  their  charm.  .  .  .  Let  young  scatterbrains 
go  to  the  sea.  We  will  be  silent  about  the  place  whereto  we  are  bound. 
And  if  on  the  billows  thou  hearest  a  murmur,  ah  !  my  love,  at  once  bury 
thy  head  in  my  breast ! " 

1  Virgil  was  much  out  of  fashion,  though  translations  are  occasionally  to 
be  met  with. 

2  [A  poet  of  Mantua  (1498-1560),  writer  of  extremely  free  verse  on  monks 
and  women.] 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  407 

Joan  of  Aragon  was  during  her  lifetime  the  object  of  a 
deification  of  this  sort,  in  which  the  Academy  de'  Dubbiosi l 
at  Venice  proceeded  according  to  the  forms  employed  at 
Rome  in  the  ceremony  of  canonisation.  There  was  first  a 
preliminary  decree,  then  a  discussion  on  the  proposal  made 
by  some  member  to  share  the  apotheosis  between  the 
exquisite  Joan  and  her  sister  the  Marchesa  dal  Vasto ; 
then  a  decree,  based  with  great  parade  of  learning  on  the 
opposition  of  Roman  pontiffs  in  bygone  days  to  Marcellus' 
project  of  dedicating  a  temple  to  Glory  and  to  Virtue  in 
conjunction,  and  enacting  that  the  honour  was  to  be  reserved 
for  Joan  alone,  and  that  it  would  be  enough  to  offer  incense 
to  the  Marchesa  dal  Vasto  in  sundry  allusions. 

The  temple  was  erected.  It  was  in  the  purest  Renaissance 
style ;  cosmopolitan,  artistic,  feminist.  Its  contents  were 
pretty  enough :  Ruscelli  celebrated  the  charming,  adorable 
and  divine  Joan  in  respectable  verse.  But  that  only 
shows  how  the  finest  things  suffer  most  when  reality 
is  replaced  by  sham.  Miscellaneous  heaps  of  poems  in  all 
languages  known  or  unknown,  Hungarian,  Hebrew,  Syriac, 
Slavonic — what  was  it  but  sham  ?  In  reality,  the  truly 
artistic  idea  was  absent. 

There  was  also,  especially  in  France,  a  whole  literature 
dealing  with  poodles  and  little  birds,  which  was  not  lacking 
in  charm,  and  above  all  in  sensibility,  for  it  was  generally 
elegiac.  Saint-Gelais,  Eustorg  de  Beaulieu  and  Marot,  like 
Catullus,  mourned  sparrows,  such  as  that  of  the  unfeeling 
Maupas : 

Las,  il  est  mort  (pleurez-le,  damoyselles), 

Le  passereau  de  la  jeune  Maupas  ; 

TJng  aultre  oiseau,  qui  n'a  plume  qu'aux  aisles, 

L'a  devore  :  le  congnoissez-vous  pas  ? 

Cest  ce  fascheux  amour... 

...Par  despit,  tua  le  passeron, 

Quand  il  ne  sceut  rien  faire  a  la  maistresse.3 

1[I.e.  the  Doubtful.] 

•Young  Maupas'  sparrow — he  is  dead,  alack  ! 

Fair  maids,  lament  him. 
A  thing  unfeathered  save  upon  his  back 

Hath  slain  and  rent  him. 
Ye  know  the  rogue — that  froward  wight 
Called  Love  hath  done  it  out  of  spite, 
For  when  the  mistress  'scaped  his  arrow, 
He  turned  about  and  slew  the  sparrow. 


408      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Vert- Vert,1  whose  misfortunes  touch  us  to  this  day,  was  a 
direct  descendant  of  the  parrot  of  Margaret  of  Austria, 
which,  having  been  allowed  to  die  during  the  absence  of  its 
mistress,  was  consequently  regarded  as  having  died  of 
despair.  Du  Bellay  has  devoted  some  of  his  most  exquisite 
verses  to  the  memory  of  a  little  dog.2  In  short,  as  we  see, 
all  these  writings  were  inspired  by  a  sentiment  of  tender- 
ness, in  the  manner  of  Berquin8  or  Florian.  The  Cardinal 
de'  Medici  loved  to  style  himself  "the  knight  errant." 
Under  the  dainty  hand  leading  them,  men  seemed  like 
meek  and  gentle  sheep,  somewhat  emasculate  perhaps, 
incapable  of  a  strong  diet,  but  polished,  sweet,  gracious ! 
Twit  them  with  losing  their  claws,  they  reassure  you !  If 
their  interests  or  their  pride  are  ever  so  little  touched,  they 
are  still  masters  of  a  pungent  rhetoric !     Listen,  behind  the 

1  [Lemaire  de  Beiges  wrote  an  elegiac  poem  on  L'aviant  vert,  Margaret's 
parrot.  A  charming  poem  with  the  title  Vert-  Vert  was  written  by  Gresset, 
a  contemporary  of  Voltaire,  recounting  the  burlesque  story  01  a  parrot 
which  had  been  the  pet  of  a  convent.] 

2Mon  Dieu,  quel  plaisir  c'estoit, 

Quand  Peloton  se  grattoit, 

Faisant  tinter  sa  sonnette, 

Avec  sa  teste  folette  ! 

Quel  plaisir,  quand  Peloton 

Cheminoit  sur  un  baston, 

Ou,  coife"  d'un  petit  linge, 

Assis  comme  un  petit  singe, 

Se  tenoit,  mignardelet, 

D'un  maintien  damoiselet  ! 

Ou,  sur  les  pieds  de  derriere, 

Portaut  la  pique  guerriere, 

Marchoit  d'un  front  asseure 

Avec  un  pas  mesure\ 

[Gad,  how  pleasant  'twas  to  see 

Fluffy  scratching  prettily, 

Making  with  his  silky  pate 

Toy-bells  tintinnabulate  ! 

And  what  fun  to  see  him  ride 

On  a  hobby-horse  astride, 

Or,  bedight  in  tiny  cape, 

Squatting  like  a  little  ape, 

Posing  like  a  proper  squire, 

Spruce  and  dainty  in  attire  ; 

On  hind  legs  erect,  perchance, 

Shouldering  a  martial  lance, 

Marching  at  a  measured  pace, 

Full  assurance  in  his  face.] 
*  [The  French   adapter  of  Sand/ord  and  Merton,   etc.  ;   known   as  the 
Friend  of  Children.] 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  409 

scenes  (or  even  before),  to  Politian,  that  charming  angel,1 
calling  an  obscure  antagonist  named  Mabillius,  "scurvy 
knave,  carcase,  lousy  dog,"  and  so  on. 

But  let  us  finish  our  portrait  of  women  from  the  intel- 
lectual point  of  view. 

They  did  more  than  rub  their  faithful  friends  to  a  fine 
polish:  they  were  gradually  drawn  on  and  impelled  to  take 
up  the  pen  themselves,  cherishing  the  secret  idea  of  enabling 
the  public  to  profit  by  the  treasures  of  their  sensibility. 

To  write  a  book,  even  in  verse,  is  not  a  crime.  But  how 
was  it  that  the  women  did  not  understand  that  in  coming 
like  professionals  before  the  public  they  were  precisely 
breaking  away  from  their  own  system  ? 

They  could,  it  is  true,  invoke  the  example  of  Spain, 
where  women  displayed  their  learning  openly  and  un- 
abashed. But  the  position  of  Spain  was  altogether  different; 
there  the  women  in  question  were  ladies  of  lofty  imagination, 
who  threw  themselves  with  extraordinary  energy  into 
regions  of  pure  erudition;  brilliant  and  famous  women  of 
high  rank — the  marchioness  of  Monteagudo,  Dona  Maria 
Pacheco  de  Mendoza,  the  pretty  Isabel  of  Cordova,  far 
richer  in  Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew  than  in  worldly  posses- 
sions ;  Catherine  Ribera,  the  bard  of  love  and  faith  ;  the  two 
"professors"  of  rhetoric  at  the  Universities  of  Salamanca 
and  Alcala;  Beatrice  of  Galindo,  who  taught  the  queen 
Latin;  Isabella  Rosera,  who  preached  in  Toledo  cathedral 
and  went  to  Rome  to  convert  the  Jews  and  to  comment  on 
Scotus  Erigena  before  an  array  of  dumbfounded  cardinals ; 
Loysa  Sygea,  again,  the  most  illustrious  of  them  all,  an 
infant  prodigy  to  begin  with,  then  a  Father  of  the  Church, 
who  could  speak  the  most  outlandish  tongues.  These  were 
women  full  of  sap  and  energy,  whom  no  one  was  astonished 
to  see  taking  by  maiu  force  the  first  rank  in  the  spheres  of 
literature,  philosophy  and  theology;  but  were  they  really 
and  truly  women  ?  or  rather,  did  they  bring  any  new  thing 
to  humanity  ?  Were  they  apostles  of  happiness  ?  No,  they 
advocated  the  claims  of  reason  as  men  did,  perhaps  better, 
perhaps  worse — that  is  all.  The  ideal  of  France  and  Italy 
was  different :  it  demanded  more  discretion.  Women  might 
be  quite  as  accomplished;  the  knowledge  of  Latin  was  so 
widely  diffused  among  them,  even   in  the   depth   of  the 

1  [Alluding  to  his  forename  Angelo.] 


410     THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

country,1  as  to  be  quite  a  matter  of  course ;  many  grappled 
with  Hebrew ;  some  people  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  rhetoric 
was  a  virtue  as  necessary  to  them  as  chastity,  if  not  more 
so.  Only,  everybody  was  steadily  faithful  to  the  maxim 
that  women  ought  to  rule  by  charm  rather  than  intellectual 
accomplishment;  and  if  it  was  necessary  to  arm  them  for 
the  strife,  their  supreme  skill  would  always  lie  in  appearing 
unarmed,  in  keeping  their  minds  free  and  winsome,  pre- 
serving unsoiled  all  the  bloom  of  their  excellent  education, 
remaining  great  ladies  and  "  amateurs." 

Ought  the  women,  at  the  time  when  the  ultra-refined 
shrank  from  appearing  in  print  as  a  lapse  from  taste,  as 
what  Montaigne  called  an  "idle  business,"  to  have  descended 
into  the  arena  and  addressed  themselves  to  the  heart  of  the 
commonplace  and  heedless  man  in  the  street  ?  Ought  they 
to  have  done  violence  to  their  thought  by  printing  it?  You 
may  address  the  public  in  regard  to  the  stern  things  of  life, 
draw  your  logical  deductions  from  truth,  hammer  out  your 
arguments,  discuss  history,  philosophy,  theology,  everything 
that  is  of  iron  and  rock.  But  sentiment  has  graces  which 
only  flourish  well  under  glass;  the  true  women  of  the 
Renaissance  were  like  orchids,  choice  and  rare  and  delicately 
perfumed,  which  close  their  petals  at  the  first  breath  of  air. 
The  same  modesty  which  defended  the  purity  of  their  bodies 
against  every  indiscreet  eye,  and  which  smiled  only  on 
friends,  seemed  to  envelop  their  souls.  They  were  not  dis- 
pleased to  hear  themselves  called  the  depositaries  of  "good 
doctrine,"  or  even  to  see  jestingly  attributed  to  them 
some  pretty  work  which  obviously  they  had  not  written : 
Aretino  was  a  very  clever  and  amusing  flatterer  when  he 
made  the  actor  in  the  prologue  of  one  of  his  most  spicy 
comedies  ask  if  the  author  of  the  piece  were  not  Vittoria 
Colonna  or  Veronica  Gambara.  But  the  most  accomplished 
and  instructed  woman  of  the  world,  Margaret  of  Savoy  for 
example,  never  tired  of  boasting  of  her  "divine  goodness." 
Noble  ladies  did  not  take  up  the  pen,  any  more  than  a  good 
housewife  needs  to  handle  a  broom;  they  readily  dictated 
even  private  letters,  with  the  splendid  indifference  of 
Talleyrand,  who,  we  may  say  in  passing,  knew  his  busi- 

1  In  1500,  in  the  village  of  Auvilliers  in  Normandy,  a  girl  of  fourteen 
named  Jeanne  la  Fournette,  as  skilled  in  Latin  as  the  parish  parson,  sang 
the  Tenebrae  in  church. 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  411 

ness  very  well.  If  they  are  ever  caught  writing,  it  was 
for  mere  amusement,  when  they  were  tired  of  painting, 
carving,  working  tapestry,  playing  the  harp,  singing,  maybe 
of  dancing  and  riding;  then  they  thought  of  their  souls,  if 
they  had  time ;  they  would  read  a  psalm  or  a  story  ;  or 
to  "  escape  idleness,"  to  banish  an  idea  that  oppressed  and 
persecuted  them,  they  would  artistically  chisel  their  idea  in 
the  form  of  a  sonnet.  Thus  understood,  poetr}'  is  the 
divine  art,  and  very  few  women  have  been  able  to  resist  it 
from  the  moment  when  it  appears  to  them  the  same  thing 
as  painting  a  fan  ! 

Margaret  of  Austria  delighted  in  etching  in  little  poems 
her  recollections  of  the  trials  of  her  life,  and  (in  absolute 
privacy)  did  not  even  disdain  to  address  some  epistles  in 
verse  to  her  devoted  friends  or  her  functionaries.  The 
amiable  Graville,  the  fair  Chateaubriand,  so  dear  to 
Francis  I.,  excelled  in  this  pastime,  and  when  we  see 
Suzanne  de  Bourbon  herself  contributing  her  share,  we  may 
well  believe  that  the  fashion  was  general.  But  between 
that  and  proclaiming  oneself  a  poet  there  was  a  wide  gulf, 
and  when  this  was  crossed,  it  was  the  beginning  of  decad- 
ence, because  the  exquisite  freshness  and  simplicity  of  the 
art  soon  gave  place  to  affectation.  To  women  of  simple 
artless  charm  succeeded  blue-stockings  like  Madame  de 
Morel  and  her  three  daughters,  or  Madame  des  Roches. 
Women  writers  arose,  and  the  Academy  of  the  Valois  found 
it  quite  natural  to  admit  them. 

Lyons  was  the  capital  of  feminine  poetry,  and  certainly  it 
is  there  that  we  can  best  appreciate  how  and  why  the 
women  fell  into  the  unfortunate  mistake  of  becoming 
professional  writers.  It  was  not  wholly  their  fault :  they 
only  succumbed  to  the  temptation  when  they  could  no 
longer  exert  their  influence  otherwise. 

Lyons  was  the  city  of  wealth  and  pleasure  and  elegance, 
the  rival  of  Paris  in  fashion,  the  "  Florence  of  France."  It 
was  often  the  headquarters  of  the  court. 

Anne  of  France,  as  sovereign  of  the  surrounding  country, 
had  at  first  exercised  there  a  very  direct  influence;  and 
afterwards  Margaret  of  France  went  there  more  than  once, 
and  gladly,  as  into  a  friendly  land. 

The  ladies  of  Lyons,  envious  of  the  "great  and  immortal 
praise"  their  neighbours  of  Italy  had  acquired,  were  desirous 


412      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

of  making  their  influence  also  felt  on  men,  and  of  doing 
honour  to  France  in  the  present  and  the  future.  It  was 
nothing  but  music  and  poetry,  poetry  and  music.1  Margaret 
of  France  smiled  broadly  at  the  universal  babblement.  Up 
to  a  certain  point,  save  for  the  somewhat  excessive  develop- 
ment of  sensibility,  nothing  was  more  legitimate  or  natural : 
the  husbands  acted  as  archivists,  piously  classifying  their 
wives'  papers  and  cultivating  their  reputations.  But  a 
time  came  when  it  appeared  calamitous  to  leave  to  hus- 
bands alone  the  care  of  so  many  treasures.  Du  Moulin, 
Margaret's  secretary,  ventured  to  aim  a  blow  at  feminine 
modesty  :  at  the  express  request  of  her  husband  he 
published  the  works  of  Madame  Pernette  du  Guillet, 
recently  deceased,  taking  good  care  to  indicate  his  intention 
of  thus  paying  collective  homage  to  "so  many  fair  and 
virtuous  ladies  of  Lyons."  He  encouraged  others  to  make 
similar  confidences. 

The  somewhat  tame  and  sublunary  verses  of  Pernette  du 
Guillet  were  not  particularly  flattering  to  tho  husband  who 
had  so  well  preserved  them.  Pernette  avows  in  all  sincerity 
that  she  had  never  known  happiness ;  how  could  she  have 
known  it?  She  divided  her  abilities  among  so  many 
things.  She  spoke  all  languages,  played  every  instrument, 
and  was  beautiful  in  addition.  The  sentiments  she  ex- 
pressed oscillate  between  a  tender  sensuousness  and 
bitterness  of  soul. 

Louise  Labe",  the  glory  of  Lyons,  did  better  service  for  her 
cause.  The  list  of  her  virtues  would  fill  several  pages. 
Fair,  rich,  and  well-bred,  a  singer,  a  dancer,  a  horsewoman, 
and  an  Italianist,  she  drew  in  her  train  such  a  flock  of 
admirers,  commentators,  panegyrists,  biographers,  and 
glossarists  that  her  death  did  not  quench  the  enthusiasm, 
but  occasioned  a  perfect  mausoleum  of  poetry. 

There  has  been  endless  discussion  in  regard  to  this 
fascinating  woman.  Many  a  lance  has  been  broken  in  regard 
to  her  virtue,  of  which  the  late  M.  de  Ruolz  was  formerly 
the  self-constituted  guarantor  and  paladin,  but  against 
which,  since  his  time,  two  erudite  writers,  themselves 
natives  of  Lyons,  Messieurs  Gaullieur  and  Gonon,  have 
brought  heavy  batteries  to  bear.  But  that  little  concerns 
us,  for  we  do  not  claim  Louise  Labe,  even  theoretically,  as 

1  "  Verse  is  the  clarion,  prose  the  sword."    (L.  Veuillot.) 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  413 

one  of  the  glories  of  pure  platonism ;  she  is  too  self- 
confident  and  cock-a-hoop,  has  such  airs  of  swagger  and 
mock  languor ;  she  smacks  of  decadence.  And  yet,  though 
she  did  not,  like  Pernette  du  Guillet,  make  the  slight  effort 
needed  to  defer  publication  till  she  was  dead,  she  does 
affect  a  modesty  which  is  itself  unpleasing.  It  was  not 
her  husband  who  impelled  her  to  appear  before  the  world, 
it  was  her  friends;  they  insisted,  swore  to  "drink  the 
half  of  the  shame " ;  and  then,  "  not  to  take  the  plunge 
alone,"  she  dedicated  her  book  to  another  lady,  Cle'menee  of 
Bourges. 

These  simpering  affectations  apart,  Louise  was  sincerely 
convinced  of  the  benefits  of  feminine  domination,  and  one 
feels  that  in  boldly  facing  publicity  she  was  obeying  a  senti- 
ment of  duty.  She  resolutely  encounters  the  enemy,  like  a 
brave  captain  who  dashes  out  of  cover  to  rally  his  disordered 
troops.  She  conjures  women  not  to  allow  themselves  to  be 
despoiled  of  the  "honest  liberty"  so  painfully  acquired — 
liberty  to  know,  to  think,  to  work,  to  shine.  Happiness ! 
— she  no  longer  deludes  herself  with  the  idea  that  she  can 
promise  it  with  certainty,  or  at  least  she  has  awakened 
from  the  dream  of  attaining  the  absolute;  but  she  tells 
herself  that  "one  can  at  least  sweeten  the  long  voyage." 
She  does  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  it  is  women's 
function  to  diffuse  sweetness  and  poetry,  to  mitigate  un- 
sociabilities, to  inspire  men  with  energy.  The  experience 
already  gained  does  not  strike  her  as  discouraging;  quite 
the  reverse ;  the  intellectual  life  takes  from  day  to  day  a 
more  splendid  amplitude,  and  this  amplitude  results  from 
the  action  of  women.  The  moments  of  all  great  intellectual 
vitality  are  marked  by  love.     So  said  Louise  Labe\ 

Tullia  d'Aragona,  who  sustained  the  same  theory  in  other 
terms,  was  one  of  the  few  Italian  women  who  did  not  fear 
to  be  reputed  authors,  probably  because  her  place  was 
already  only  on  the  fringe  of  society.  In  general  she  employs 
few  circumlocutions,  but  goes  straight  to  the  point  with  a 
vigorous  eloquence.  Her  poems,  almost  all  addressed  to 
men,  deal  with  subjects  of  the  gravest  kind,  particularly 
with  religion.  Tullia  had  the  inestimable  advantage  of 
knowing  humanity  from  top  to  bottom.  Beside  her,  Calvin 
and  Ochino  are  as  innocent  as  babes,  and  she  taunts  them, 
not    unfairly,   with    dealing    their    blows    blindly    with- 


414      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

out  distinguishing  between  what  is  serious  and  what  is 
harmless.  Her  own  wisdom  is  wonderful  !  The  poet 
Arrighi  cannot  help  exclaiming,  "Vittoria  Colonna  is  a 
moon,  Tullia  a  sun."  She  celebrates  pure  love  in  the  true 
lyrical  and  forceful  strain,  as  "the  magnificent,  the  admirable 
madness  which  alone  produces  great  enterprises."  Whilst 
immaculate  women  like  Vittoria  Colonna  and  Veronica 
Gambara  too  often  stifle  us  with  languorous  sensibility 
("  When  I  was  a  happy  lover,  I  exhaled  the  harmonies  of 
my  heart  in  calm  and  pious  accents  "),  Tullia,  who  has  long 
ago  lost  this  tranquillity  and  these  religious  illusions,  knows 
that  will  and  action  are  needed ;  she  does  not  ask  for  the 
impossible,  but  on  the  other  hand  she  valiantly  excom- 
municates Boccaccio  with  his  "villanous  novels,"  before 
whom  the  coy  ladies  of  fashion  bow  their  faces  to  the  earth. 
In  a  dialogue  with  two  gentlemen,  she  discourses  on  love  in 
quite  a  platonist  key ;  she  investigates  its  casuistry :  "  Is 
the  end  of  love  its  limit?  Is  it  better  to  love  or  to  be 
loved  ? "  She  prefers  to  be  loved,  this  fair  artist,  because  in 
loving  we  are  acted  on  by  the  motive  force,  while  in  being 
loved  we  exert  it.  Women  who  have  really  loved  will 
perhaps  be  of  a  different  opinion ;  nevertheless  there  in  one 
line  we  have  stated  the  great  contention  of  the  time.  The 
art  of  women  ought  to  have  been  to  make  themselves  loved 
and  to  constrain  men  to  love;  they  were  often  caught  in 
their  own  toils ;  they  loved,  and  consequently  instead  of 
receiving  they  gave.  "  The  heart  has  reasons  reason  never 
knows." 

These  few  notes  on  the  literary  work  of  women  suffice  to 
show  that,  on  the  whole,  feminine  literature,  except  in  Spain, 
sprang  from  love,  to  return  to  love  again.  No  great 
influence  in  the  intellectual  crisis  of  the  Renaissance  can  be 
attributed  to  these  various  writings ;  they  scarcely  did 
more  than  develop  more  or  less  intuitively  the  platonist 
philosophy. 

On  the  other  hand,  women  exercised  an  enormous  intel- 
lectual influence  through  their  individual  and  personal 
action,  especially  in  Italy.  They  carried  their  charm  into 
quarters  which  the  mediaeval  theologians,  so  ready  to  style 
themselves  the  "doctors  of  the  poor,"  never  penetrated, — 
namely,  among  the  poverties  of  the  heart.  They  overlaid 
life   with   that   varnish   of  wonderful,   singular  sweetness 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  415 

which  has  never  been  wholly  rubbed  off;  they  intel- 
lectualised  society,  and,  in  a  country  essentially  marked 
out  as  a  prey  for  gold  and  luxury,  they  delayed  the 
moment  when  men  were  to  be  estimated  merely  by  the 
gilding  of  their  ceilings  or  the  thickness  of  their  carpets. 

The  effects  of  their  work  north  of  the  Alps  are  not  very 
easily  measured.  Resistance  there  was  too  strong ;  the 
masculine  world  was  not  easily  won  over;  men  growled, 
for  it  seemed  to  them  that  women  were  plucking  their  souls 
out,  or  wishing  to  degrade  them,  in  proposing  that  they 
should  submit  to — what  ?  a  sort  of  intellectual  goodness. 
They  refused  to  hear  women  and  intellect  spoken  of  to- 
gether. The  Germans  recognised  no  intelligence  in  them 
apart  from  their  domestic  duties.  What  the  Italians  called 
intelligence  a  German  would  call  tittle-tattle,  trickery,  the 
spirit  of  contradiction.  They  rejected  such  gratifications, 
and  had  no  intention  of  allowing  Delilah  to  shear  them. 
They  would  readily  have  declared,  like  an  arrogant  character 
of  M.  de  Curel,  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  but 
egotism,  and  that  the  egotism  which  creates  life  is  of  more 
worth  than  that  which  employs  itself  in  providing  life  with 
consolations.  As  to  poetry,  forsooth,  they  were  tempted  to 
receive  love  serenades  with  a  bucket  of  water.  And  if  the 
Italians  sneered  at  them  as  barbarians,  "brainless  people," 
they  would  answer  them  on  the  day  of  battle  by  demon- 
strating how  far  mere  brains  and  sensibility  served  a  nation. 
Erasmus  dubbed  "  any  man  who  was  honest  and  learned " 
an  Italian ;  precisely,  but  what  had  the  Italians  come  to 
with  their  beautiful  ideas?  They  wrangled,  but  they  no 
longer  fought.1  "  Don't  talk  to  me  of  the  Venetians,"  said 
Louis  XII. ;  "  they  don't  know  how  to  die."  To  know  how 
to  die — that  is  life. 

Virile,  stern,  frugal,  poor,  rustic  often  to  boorishness, 
Germany  in  this  way  kept  up  against  the  intellectual 
paradox  the  old  disdainful  warfare  of  the  empire  against  the 
priesthood,  and  once  more  the  gulf  was  dug  out  between 
body  and  mind,  between  matter  and  spirit,  force  and 
liberty.  From  the  banks  of  the  Rhine  a  furious  hail  of 
missiles   was   directed   against    the    fragile   aspirations  of 

lu61i  Italian!,  col  lor  saper  lettere,  haver  roostrato  poco  valer  nell' 
arme,  da  un  tempo  in  qua."  (Castiglione.)  [The  Italians,  with  their 
knowledge  of  letters,  have  shown  little  worth  in  arms  at  any  time.] 


416      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Italianism.  Brandt  published  his  famous  Ship  of  Fools,1 
reissued  seventeen  times  between  1494  and  1520,  a  work  as 
much  translated,  copied  and  imitated  in  the  Germanic 
world  as  Petrarch  was  in  the  Latin  world ;  a  pungent  and 
unjust  work  in  which  defile,  as  in  a  booth  at  the  fair,  all  the 
little  grotesques  which  bring  joy  to  mind  and  heart — not 
merely,  needless  to  say,  old  Turk's  heads  like  the  physician 
or  the  astrologer,  but  new  types — the  spectacled  Scholar, 
busy  nursing  his  own  reputation  under  colour  of  Plato  or 
Menander ;  the  man  of  the  world,  oiled  and  curled  indeed, 
but  a  wit,  a  lover,  a  giddy-pate,  and  a  firm  believer  in  the 
black  art;  no  one  is  missing,  not  even  the  explorer,  at  a 
period  when  the  world  was  dreaming  of  free  exchanges  and 
the  demolition  of  frontiers,  the  age  of  Columbus  and  Vasco 
da  Gama.  In  the  greater  part  of  these  adventurers  the  old 
German  sees  only  arm-chair  travellers  or  tap -room  oracles, 
aud  among  the  genuine  travellers  he  anticipates  Sterne 
in  distinguishing  idle  loungers,  curiosity  hunters,  liars, 
braggarts,  conceited  puppies,  windbags,  travellers  in  their 
own  despite,  travellers  fleeing  from  justice,  felons,  the 
innocent  and  unfortunate  traveller,  the  traveller  for  his 
own  amusement.  Hardly  any  is  forgotten  but  the  senti- 
mental traveller. 

As  to  the  poets,  needless  to  say  whether  a  genuine 
German  scoffs  at  these  "gentlemen  in  -us,"  a  sort  of  intel- 
lectual Tartarins,  who  in  actual  life  lead  old  and  even 
wealthy  women  to  the  altar.2 

And  thereupon  heads  grew  hot,  and  men  pointed  to  the 
decadence  of  morals,  the  desertion  of  the  country,  the 
flocking  of  people  into  the  towns,  and  they  laid  the  blame 
on  Rome,  the  head  of  the  movement — Rome  without  a 
rudder,  without  a  compass,  drawn  helplessly  along  by  the 
new  spirit  through  which  she  was  to  perish. 

Some  years  later,  when  in  spite  of  everything  the  rising 
tide  at  last  made  its  force  felt,  the  opposition  changed  front. 
People  began  to  twit  Italian  learning  with  superficial 
ostentation.     A  love  for  books  was  laughed  at.     Ptolemy 

1  [The  popularity  of  the  Ship  of  Fools  was  partly  due  to  its  admirable 
woodcuts,  which  are  of  quite  extraordinary  excellence,  and  much  more 
amusing  than  the  text.] 

2  Hiitten.  Though  he  is  joking,  Hiitten  pretty  faithfully  represents  the 
opinions  of  a  part  of  Germany,  which  did  not  perceive  his  sarcasm. 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  417 

Philadelphia  was  a  wonderful  man,  to  be  sure,  to  collect 
forty  thousand  volumes  at  Alexandria  !  An  ass  might  just 
as  well  load  himself  with  guitars  and  set  up  for  a  musician  ! 
That  may  be  admitted ;  but  they  did  not  stop  there ;  and, 
notwithstanding  all  we  know  of  the  violences  of  party 
spirit,  we  cannot  help  feeling  somewhat  astonished  when 
we  hear  a  man  like  Marot  contemptuously  flinging  the 
epithet  of  "ignoramus"  at  the  Rome  of  Leo  X.,  or 
Melanchthon  talking  of  Italy  as  "Egyptian  darkness,  a 
prey  to  the  worst  enemies  of  literature  and  study."  That 
seems  the  very  last  accusation  that  might  have  been 
expected. 

These  German  ideas  were  half  French  too,  and  conse- 
quently, in  the  hot  give-and-take  of  battle,  imperial  Ger- 
many and  papal  Italy,  in  spite  of  some  shrewd  blows, 
maintained  their  positions  well  enough,  whilst  France, 
caught  between  two  fires,  was  shattered.  At  the  very 
gates  of  Lyons,  the  sweet  city  of  feminism,  the  Germanists 
and  Huguenots  brutally  replied  to  all  the  poetry  of  the 
women  with  the  jest  of  D'Aubigne7 :  "  When  the  eggs  are 
hatched,  the  nightingale  stints  his  song." 

In  addition  to  many  earnest  men  and  almost  all  poli- 
ticians, believers  in  authority  and  even  in  force,  Italian 
dilettantism  found  other  ardent  adversaries  in  France  in 
the  champions  of  the  old  gauloiserie,  who  continued  to 
dote  on  naturalism  naked  and  unadorned,  the  syntheses  or 
analyses  of  the  flesh.  They  felt  insulted  that  anyone 
should  wish  to  impose  on  them  a  strained  and  uncomfort- 
able Petrarchism  with  the  idea  of  toning  them  down. 
However,  Petrarchism  did  not  effect  very  much,  and  it  was 
assuredly  not  guilty  of  softening  certain  crudities  and  of 
replacing  by  its  mawkishness  the  twaddle  of  illustrious 
nobodies  like  Jean  Picart,  Etienne  Clavier  and  others. 

Hence,  in  so  disturbed  an  atmosphere  as  France  then 
was,  we  should  be  led  to  conclude  that  the  influence  of 
women  was  negative,  in  the  scientific  sense  of  the  word. 
Their  work  was  like  M.  Pasteur's.  The  soul  of  man  was 
stirred,  agitated,  overwhelmed  by  a  host  of  imperceptible 
microbes;  the  women  did  not  furnish  an  infallible  specific 
for  preserving  the  health,  but  sought  to  sterilise  the  noxious 
germs,  to  make  the  air  pure  and  the  water  clear. 

Even  after  the  squalls  of  the  16th  century  it  cannot  be 

2d 


418      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

said  that  no  vestige  of  their  effort  remained.  For  it  is  the 
characteristic  of  France  to  be  a  complex  and  accommodating 
country,  where  nothing  triumphs,  but  everything  succeeds, 
where  nothing  abides,  but  nothing  is  lost.  To  this  very 
day,  an  hour's  carriage  drive  through  Paris  takes  you 
through  the  last  four  or  live  centuries  of  our  history.  The 
feminism  of  tho  16th  century  brought  down  and  deposited 
a  new  stratum  of  traditions :  nothing  more  could  be  ex- 
pected. 

The  violence  of  the  opposition  prompts  us  also  to  find 
some  excuses  for  the  timidity  we  have  pointed  out  in  high- 
placed  women.  Women  genuinely  frank  and  fearless  could 
only  be  found  in  humbler  life.  We  have  seen  how  much 
difficulty  Margaret  of  France,  called  to  live  in  a  circum- 
scribed and  select  society,  had  in  determining  her  precise 
whereabouts,  since  she  met  with  nothing  but  contradiction 
around  her.  When  her  scared  platonism  came  at  last,  about 
1540,  to  formulate  as  in  Italy  definite  principles  of  guidance 
through  the  pen  of  He'roet  de  la  Maisonneuve,  and  a  heated 
contention  was  the  result,  Margaret  prudently  tacked  about, 
and  smiled,  now  upon  He'roet,  now  upon  his  adversary  La 
Borderie.1  And  yet  the  rein  was  felt,2  and  in  her  circle  it 
became  necessary  to  sing  of  love  in  a  more  philosophic  key. 
The  fierce  Des  PeYiers  himself,  type  of  the  man  who  loves 
to  bite,  saw  himself  reduced  to  translating  the  Lysis  of 
Plato,  under  the  insipid  title,  "  The  Quest  of  Friendship." 

The  victory  thus  remained  a  moderate  and  indecisive  one, 
somewhat  out  of  proportion  to  the  great  enthusiasm  dis- 
played. The  fine  triumphant  treatises  on  the  excellence  and 
transcendent  merit  of  women,  those  sacred  stones,  relics  of  a 
forgotten  worship,  deserted  dolmens,  were  almost  all  Italian. 
Margaret  showed  some  displeasure  when  she  heard  women 
ill-spoken  of;  but  she  did  not  inspire  glorious  rhapsodies, 

1  [Verses  by  H£roet  and  La  Borderie  appeared  in  Opuscules  d'amour, 
Lyons,  1547.  H<5roet's  Parfaite  Amie  is  a  lady  who,  having  lost  her  lover, 
is  content  to  await  a  spiritual  union  in  a  better  world.  La  Borderie's  Amie 
de  Cour  is  a  lady  of  quite  contrary  proclivities.] 

2  In  1546  Delahaye,  sometime  printer  of  Alencon,  now  blossomed  into 
*  Silvius,'  could  praise  Margaret  for  the  service  she  had  just  rendered  to 
the  French  mind  :  A  coarse  Cupid,  he  said,  was  reigning  when  true  Love 
descended  from  heaven  to  chase  him  away,  found  hostelry  with  the  princess, 
and  "gently  settled  upon  a  hedge."  According  to  him,  Margaret  had 
succeeded  in  ruling  the  appetites,  and  in  practically  introducing  philosophic 
love  into  poetry. 


INTELLECTUAL   INFLUENCE  419 

like  Vittoria  Colonna  and  many  others.  In  France  free 
discussion  on  the  merits  and  demerits  of  women  continued 
rife. 

Such  wrangling  was  indeed  an  old  French  social  pastime: 
everyone  said  his  say,  with  perfect  liberty  to  change  his 
mind,  and  a  host  of  well-worn  sentiments  more  or  less 
amusing  were  bandied  about :  "  Eve  was  a  woman,  God 
made  himself  man !  There  are  no  women  among  priests. 
It  is  very  seemly  to  sleep  alone.  I  have  never  been  in  love 
or  married,  thank  God ! "  In  the  15th  century  people 
succeeded  for  a  moment  in  believing  that  the  intellectual 
level  of  their  little  pastime  might  be  raised  till  it  at  last 
attained  the  Italian  perfection;  a  Norman  named  Martin  Le 
Franc,  whom  his  duties  as  secretary  to  Felix  V.  had  made 
half  a  pontiff,  at  one  moment  threw  out  the  grand  phrase 
which  was  to  set  Italy  on  fire  :  "  Women  are  the  apostles  of 
happiness,  because  they  are  the  apostles  of  universal  and 
necessary  love."  A  few  little  academies  or  puys  d'amour,1 
scattered  here  and  there  in  Picardy  and  Flanders,  caught, 
eagerly  at  the  idea,  but  without  deriving  from  it  anything^ 
better  than  an  encouragement  to  the  flowery  verbosities  of 
dead-and-gone  chivalry,  which  they  plumed  themselves  on 
continuing.  Then  came  the  wild  outbreaks  in  Germany  to 
give  the  finishing  stroke,  and  when  Brandt  and  Geyler2 
became  the  idols  of  public  opinion  the  French  feminists 
blushed  and  turned  tail.  No  more  monuments  were  erected 
to  the  glory  of  women,  and  even  a  masterpiece  of  our  art  of 
engraving,  an  absolutely  charming  Ship*  that  appeared  about 
1500,  was  devoted  to  their  disparagement.  It  is  a  series  of 
little  pictures,  representing,  to  begin  with,  the  inevitable 
Eve,  and  then  coquetry,  music,  dinners,  perfumes,  love.  The 
author  does  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  all  these  things  are 
unutterably  wearisome  to  him,  but  he  insinuates  that  in  his 
opinion  it  is  useless  to  look  for  any  serious  idea  among 
such  frivolities. 

The  French  were  quite  ready  to  admit  that  women  had 
certain   moral    qualities,   like   goodness   and   devotion  ;    a 

1  [The  puy  was  properly  a  mound  or  other  elevated  place  on  which  com- 
petitions in  poetry  and  song  were  held — eisteddfoddi.  ] 

3  [A  racy  preacher  whose  sermons  on  Brandt's  Ship  of  Fools  were  very 
popular.     He  preached  on  "  subjects  of  the  day."!J 

•  Stultifere  naves. 


420      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

woman  who  had  only  one  shift  would  give  it  away,  they 
knew.  A  writer  puts  into  Eve's  mouth  a  cry  of  sublime 
self-sacrifice  at  the  moment  of  her  expulsion  from  the 
garden :  "  Slay  me,"  she  cries  to  Adam :  "  perhaps  God  will 
restore  you  to  Paradise ! "  And  yet  it  was  to  her  that  he 
owed  his  expulsion.  But  the  great  majority  of  Frenchmen 
very  unjustly  believed  frivolity,  inconstancy,  lack  of  origin- 
ality to  be  defects  inherent  in  the  sex,  and  not  merely  the 
result  of  an  unfortunate  education.  If  accomplished  women 
quoted  Plato  or  St.  Thomas  they  were  laughed  at,  no  one 
would  believe  that  they  had  an  opinion  of  their  own,  but 
■declared  that  they  had  got  some  one  to  coach  them,  that 
1  the  doctrine  was  no  deeper  than  their  lips,  that  they  had 
no  naturalness,  that  they  disappeared  under  art."  A  woman 
was  believed  to  be  afflicted  with  the  radical  incapacity  to 
Acquire  an  individual  idea.  Montaigne,  who  nevertheless 
boasts  of  being  platonic  and  anti-epicurean,1  sums  up  all 
these  old  prejudices  in  flatly  refusing  to  regard  woman  as 
anything  but  a  pretty  animal.  Virtue  (the  woman's,  that 
is  ;  Montaigne  has  different  ideas)  is  corporeal  fidelity  :  his 
ideal  is  Anne  of  Brittany  weaving  tapestry  in  the  conjugal 
bedroom.  Montaigne  reluctantly  admits  that  feminine 
coquetry  may  end  in  ennobling  love,  but  without  changing 
its  destination:  "You  can  do  something  without  the  graces 
of  the  mind,  but  nothing  without  bodily  graces."  Thus, 
when  Roman  and  papal  society  claimed  for  women  the 
absolute  right  to  have  done  with  paint  and  powder,  it  fell 
foul  of  a  host  of  preconceived  ideas. 

Frenchwomen  did  not  firmly  enough  assert  themselves. 
Their  services  were  accepted  for  domestic  tasks,  often 
delicate  and  difficult,  which  necessitated  much  intelligence, 
but  were  considered  servile  or  at  least  inferior.  Further, 
when  they  endeavoured  to  rise  above  this  state  of  bondage, 
they  were  checked,  sent  back  to  their  idleness  and  frivolity, 
persuaded  that  it  was  no  duty  of  theirs  to  defend  the  great 
causes  men  too  often  deserted ;  and  they  believed  it.  Here 
is  a  mass  of  useless  men,  says  the  world:  go  to,  let  us 
match  them  with  useless  women !  But  was  it  not  a  mis- 
take thus  to  bury  them  alive,  so  as  to  prevent  their  being 
too  much  in  evidence  ?  Was  it  right  to  inflict  on  the  half 
of  the  human  species  a  malaise  the  more  terrible  because 

1  Bk.  i.  cap.  li. ;  bk.  iii.  cap.  v. 


INTELLECTUAL  INFLUENCE  421 

for  the  most  part  the  victim  was  unable  to  account  for  it  ? 
A  woman  who  had  all  that  is  apparently  necessary  for 
perfect  happiness,  and  who  nevertheless  was  sick  and 
unhappy  by  reason  of  the  emptiness  of  her  life,  exclaimed  : 
"  I  feel  I  lack  something.  In  my  soul  there  are  faculties 
stifled  and  useless,  too  many  things  that  are  undeveloped 
and  of  no  service  to  anyone."  How  many  like  her  have 
there  been  at  all  times — women  of  deep,  vacant,  ever  virgin 
souls,  who  suffer  through  not  giving  themselves,  and  live 
in  maiden  meditation,  fancy  free!  And  why?  For  the 
sole  profit  of  the  selfishness  of  men!  "No,  this  ought  not  to 
be,"  warmly  rejoined  a  convinced  spiritualist :  "  if  men 
complain  of  seeing  themselves  equalled  or  surpassed,  mores 
the  pity :  they  have  only  themselves  to  blame.  'Tis  that 
they  are  unworthy  of  their  women  ! "  This  was  not  the 
speech  of  a  Frenchman,  but  of  a  Roman  prelate,  Giovanni 
Monti,  secretary  to  the  pope. 


CHAPTER  V 

RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE 

The  great  effort  that  we  have  sought  to  portray  resulted 
finally  in  a  profound  religious  revolution ;  starting  from  a 
crisis  in  belief,  it  led  to  a  transformation  of  Christianity 
through  the  ministry  of  women. 

In  reality,  feminism  exalted  the  soul  rather  than  the 
woman.  Woman  is  born  to  cling  to  somebody  ;  if  man  fails 
her  she  seeks  a  stay  in  God.  It  was  thus  inevitable  that  her 
religion  of  beauty  should  end  in  a  mystic  marriage,  in  a 
great  dramatic  act  of  religious  sensibility,  in  a  development 
of  charity  and  hope  on  the  basis  of  definite  dogma,  in  the 
skilful  interpretation  of  impressions  of  the  unseen  by  means 
of  external  signs. 

That  women  would  fling  themselves  passionately  into 
religious  sensibility  was  only  to  be  expected.  This  is  their 
way.1  Leaving  out  of  account  those  who  are  never  happy 
out  of  church,  women  love  to  fancy  themselves  queens  by 
the  grace  of  God.  The  incomprehensible,  which  irritates 
men,  fascinates  them,  and  they  experience  a  singular  joy  in 
rummaging  the  mysteries.  As  we  have  already  said,  at  the 
moment  of  the  religious  crisis  a  courtesan  proffered  the  most 
judicious  advice  on  the  direction  of  ecclesiastical  affairs. 

In  the  Church,  to  mistrust  the  intrusion  of  women  was 
a  peremptory  tradition,  and  indeed  the  ecclesiastical  world 
may  well  be  considered  the  citadel  of  anti-feminism. 
Religion  had  taken  a  logical  and  theological  bent ;  it  recog- 
nised only  one  morality,  applying  to  noble  ladies  and 
eminent  intelligences  the  rules  taught  to  plainer  folk.    Eras- 

1  One  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  Albigensian  heresy  was  that  it  developed 
through  the  apostleship  of  women. 

422 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  423 

mus  repeats  approvingly  the  maxim  of  St.  Paul :  "  Christ  is 
the  head  of  man,  man  the  head  of  woman ;  man  is  the  image 
and  glory  of  God ;  woman  the  glory  of  man."  With  the  Church 
Fathers  it  had  been  a  long-established  custom  (going  back 
to  the  wisest  of  the  wise,  Solomon)  to  compare  women,  and 
even  the  Virgin,  to  the  moon.  From  sacred  literature  this 
comparison  passed  into  profane  literature,  which  employed 
it  in  season  and  out.  Rabelais  declares  that  women  play  hide 
and  seek  with  their  husbands,  as  the  moon  with  the  sun; 
Boccaccio  and  Bran  tome  revive  the  old  proverb  about  the 
virtue  of  women  needing  to  renew  itself  every  month  like 
the  moon.  One  poet  decries  the  moon,  pale  like  woman's 
love;  another  adores  her,  pure  like  his  well-beloved. 

The  platonists  were  well  content  with  this  phantasma- 
goric comparison,  which  represented  to  them  in  all  likeli- 
hood a  whole  world  of  freshness  and  domestic  joys. 

Dolce  himself  deems  that  the  moon  is  feminine.  "  At 
night,"  he  says,  "she  streams  through  every  chink  and 
cranny,  spite  of  blinds  and  shutters ;  she  inspires  the 
imagination  of  husbands."  In  France,  during  the  period  of 
the  fair  Diana's  ascendency,  the  moon  quite  eclipsed  the  sun ; 
the  king  sported  a  device  of  interlaced  crescents.1  But  the 
Church  did  not  go  so  far.  It  excluded  women  from  the 
priesthood ;  its  tradition  granted  them  nothing  except 
personal  piety,  or  at  most  heroism  like  that  of  St.  Catherine 
of  Sienna  of  unfading  memory.  In  order,  therefore,  to 
secure  a  place  in  an  absolutely  new  order  of  ideas,  women 
had  to  wash  their  hands  once  for  all  of  eminent  dogmaticians 
and  subtle  moralists,  and  to  effect  a  complete  change. 

Many  enlightened  minds  in  the  Church  itself  called  for 
this  renovation. 

The  weariness  and  disgust  generally  felt  in  regard  to 
certain  trivialities  in  religious  observance,  to  the  apologetics 
and  the  frigid  ethics  of  the  time,   had  caused  the  spirit 

1  With  this  motto: 

Donnez  puissance  souveraine 
Au  croissant  de  France,  tel  cours 
Qu'il  vienne  jusqu'a  lune  plaine 
Sana  jamais  entrer  en  decours. 
[All  sovereign  might  do  ye  bestow 
On  France's  crescent ;  let  it  grow 
Till  a  full  moon  in  heaven  it  reigns 
And  never  from  that  glory  wanes.  ] 


424      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

of  faith  and  faith  itself  almost  entirely  to  disappear;  and 
thus  the  Beautiful  easily  became  the  guiding  principle 
of  theology.  Only,  some  people  sought  their  theology  in 
abstractions,  others  in  the  joys  of  art.  The  fall  of  Savona- 
rola precipitated  the  movement  in  the  direction  of  art.  His 
friends  were  downhearted.  Michelangelo  clave  to  the  Man 
of  sorrows,  the  crucified  Christ,  "  as  a  skiff  to  the  harbour  "  ; 
his  faith  became  confidence,  and  dogmatic  theology  had  no 
further  interest  for  him. 

So  far  from  feeling  itself  harmed  by  this  breath  of 
philosophy,  Eome,  ancient  and  eternal,  regarded  itself  as 
invigorated  thereby.  "  I  am  a  Christian  platonist,"  had  been 
the  saying  of  the  early  platonists.  Too  proud  to  have  any 
love  for  the  petty  arguments  and  the  material  extravagances 
of  every-day  religion,  these  philosophical  prelates  wished  to 
establish  the  authority  of  the  Church  on  the  liberty,  not  the 
anaemia,  of  the  conscience. 

The  new  philosophy  declared  itself  to  be  more  Christian 
than  that  of  Aristotle,  and  bowed  before  the  official  dogmas, 
like  the  priest  before  the  altar,  declaring  itself  "  unworthy  " 
— before  dogmas  of  almost  insolent  authority,  stern,  in- 
exorable, but  modified  by  tenderness.  The  new  religion 
was  the  philosophy  of  the  Lord's  Prayer.  It  sufficed  to 
recite  the  Paternoster  in  the  spirit  of  love  harmonising  with 
it ;  regarding  God  as  the  good  Father,  who  gives  life  because 
He  is  life, — God,  the  celestial  and  ideal,  whose  will  should 
be  done  because  it  is  the  very  essence  of  love  to  seek  its 
motives  in  the  will  of  the  beloved  one.  We  love,  not 
the  idols  of  the  world,  silver  and  gold,  but  love  and  mercy ; 
our  daily  bread  is  sufficient  for  us,  love  has  loosened 
in  us  the  springs  of  ambition;  filled  with  tenderness  and 
dignity,  foes  to  intrigue,  we  have  to  spread  abroad  in  the 
world  this  same  tenderness  and  the  tolerance  it  implies ; 
may  God  in  like  manner  pardon  the  evil  we  may  do.  We 
beseech  Providence  not  to  put  temptation  in  our  way,  so 
that  we  may  be  saved  from  falling ! 

God  is  all  love  and  all  life.  It  is  not  His  will  to  betray 
us  by  laying  snares  for  us;  His  religion  can  be  only  the 
perfect  manifestation  of  natural  law.  Goodness  and  piety 
do  not  mean  pessimism  and  self-abdication. 

The  positive  side  of  religion,  namely,  the  creed,  may  well 
be  left  to  reasoners  and  theologians,  for  it  gives  rise  to 


RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  425 

insoluble  problems.  But  religion  also  includes  principles  of 
practical  morality,  which  have  for  object  the  happiness  of  man. 

In  regard  to  the  second  point,  the  Gospel  leaves  us  great 
liberty.  It  lays  down  no  dogmas  in  regard  to  beauty ;  it 
confines  itself  to  bequeathing  us  love,  not  a  love  more  or 
less  alloyed  with  selfishness,  vanity  or  interest,  but  a 
general  love  for  God  and  our  neighbours,  resulting  from  an 
inward  spirit  of  devotion. 

That  being  so,  what  is  the  good  of  quirks  and  quiddities  ? 
What  is  the  good  of  tight  fetters  ?  Love,  and  go  straight 
on  your  way — that  is  the  new  formula, — a  very  effective 
one,  since  it  converts  dogmas  into  sentiments,  and  conse- 
quently gives  them  a  direct  bearing  upon  life ;  a  very 
philosophical  one,  for  nothing  is  so  personal,  so  individual 
as  sentiment.  And,  as  Montaigne  says,  *  It  is  a  most  excel- 
lent and  commendable  enterprise  properly  to  accommodate 
and  fit  to  the  service  of  our  faith  the  natural  helps  and 
human  implements  which  God  hath  bestowed  upon  us. 
.  .  .  Had  we  fast  hold  on  God  by  the  interposition  of  a 
lively  faith ;  had  we  fast  hold  on  God  by  Himself,  and  not 
by  us ;  the  love  of  novelty,  the  constraint  of  princes,  the 
good  success  of  one  party,  the  rash  and  casual  changing  of 
our  opinions,  should  not  then  have  the  power  to  shake  and 
alter  our  belief."1 

Faith  is  the  best  and  almost  the  only  guarantee  of  liberty 
of  thought. 

That  explains  why,  in  the  official  apartments  of  the  pope, 
the  School  of  Athens,  an  eclectic  homage  to  the  philosophic 
spirit,  is  a  companion  picture  to  the  Controversy  on  the 
Holy  Sacrament,  the  synthesis  of  the  spirit  of  faith,  and 
why  the  Parnassus  appears  to  unite  them.  No  one  found 
anything  to  object  to  in  this  alliance.  Erasmus  insists  on  the 
fact  that  Christianity  and  Plato  are  in  wonderful  accord  in 
regard  to  happiness  ;  Cornelius  Agrippa  himself,  who 
ventured  to  call  Plato  a  "  master  of  errors,"2  attributes  to 
Socrates  inspiration  from  on  high. 

Leo  X.  acted  as  pope  in  countenancing  Plato. 

Mitigating  circumstances  have  been  urged  in  his  favour  ; 
as  the  Roman  tradition  excels  in  accommodating  itself  to 

1  Bk.  ii.  cap.  xii. 

2  "  Platonis,  ceterorumque  philosophorum,  quos  omnes  errorum  magistros 
08tendimus." 


426      THE   WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  needs  of  each  successive  age,  some  Catholic  writers  have 
thought  that  the  alliance  between  Roman  prelates  and  the 
new  aesthetic  cult  was  a  prudent  concession  to  circum- 
stances. Our  opinion,  on  the  contrary,  is  that  Rome,  under 
the  influence  of  a  century  and  a  half  of  ardent  study, 
deliberately  placed  herself  at  the  head  of  the  movement. 
Rightly  or  wrongly,  she  believed  that  religion  is  the  art 
of  living  freely  and  in  peace.  "The  soul  is  far  above  the 
intellect." 

In  virtue  of  this  maxim  there  appeared,  closely  leagued 
with  the  prelates  for  the  purpose  of  reforming  the  Christian 
practice  and  restoring  to  it  its  primitive  motive  force,  the 
women,  whether  platonist  or  not,  who  have  been  called 
bibliennes,  but  whom  we  would  rather  call  Mothers  of  the 
Church.  In  these  days  we  stick  pretty  closely  to  the 
external  and  picturesque  features  of  the  Bible ;  we  read  it 
as  a  story  that  has  come  true,  and  love  a  realistic  illustra- 
tion. The  bibliennes,  too,  after  their  fashion,  sought 
impressions,  rather  than  a  doctrine;  for  what  they  called 
"  my  religion "  was  the  doctrine  of  others,  on  which  they 
drew  their  own  patterns,  like  figure-skaters.  What  con- 
cerned them  in  the  Gospel  was  its  philosophy.1  They 
wished  to  profit  by  it  on  their  own  system,  that  is,  by 
intuition,  by  inspiration  from  on  high.  Faith  in  witchcraft 
flourished  more  than  ever,  and  it  seemed  quite  natural  to 
regard  women  as  the  special  interpreters  of  the  unseen.2 
The  bloody  persecutions  of  the  16th  century  did  not  succeed 
in  uprooting  the  belief  in  witches,  who  sometimes  indulged 
in  horrid  midnight  abominations,  but  who  were  the  more 
habitually  consulted  by  people  who  wanted  to  have  their 

1 "  Nevertheless  it  must  not  be  thought,  when  we  make  mention  of 

Jhilosophy,  that  we  speak  only  of  that  which  is  learnt  in  the  writings  of 
lato  and  other  philosophers,  for  we  get  also  from  the  philosophy  of  the 
Gospel,  which  is  the  word  of  God,  the  holy  and  salutary  precepts  with 
which  Margaret  was  so  well  indoctrinated  and  instructed  by  her  teachers  " 
(Sainte-Marthe's  Funeral  Oration). 

2  People  still  went  to  witches  and  "  Egyptians  to  get  antidotes  for  love, 
or  love  philtres,  or  simply  potions  for  securing  good  luck.  These  potions 
were  mischievously  used,  as  morphine  is  to-day  :  it  was  what  they  called 
selling  the  devil  in  bottles.  Rabelais  shows  us  his  Pantagruelion  :  Porta, 
Cardan,  and  other  grave  occultists  or  physicians  have  handed  down  several 
of  the  prescriptions  then  current :  opium  was  generally  used  to  produce 
delightful  dreams ;  nightshade  produced  smiling  illusions.  The  principle 
of  love  philtres  was  derived  from  remote  antiquity,  and  apparently  M. 
Brown-Sequard  has  borrowed  something  from  them. 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  427 

fortunes  told,  to  have  their  ailments  treated,1  to  obtain  good 
weather,  etc.2  The  boundless  ambition  of  Julius  II.  sprang, 
it  was  said,  from  the  prediction  of  a  sorceress,  who  had  told 
him  to  be  of  good  cheer,  for  he  would  obtain  the  tiara  and 
world-wide  sway.  The  witches  loosed  or  bound  the  devil  at 
pleasure.  Their  power  was  evil,  but  supernatural.  People 
said  "  witch " ;  in  some  parts  the  word  "  wizard "  did 
not  even  exist.  If  the  witch  was  to  credulous  people  the 
incarnation  of  women's  special  aptitude  for  medicine  and 
religion,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  truth  in  the  idea,  and 
women  might  well  be  supposed  capable  of  exercising  super- 
natural power.  It  was  fashionable  to  extol  the  ancient  sibyls 
in  the  same  terms  as  the  prophets.  These  celebrated  beings 
formed  the  connecting  link  between  antiquity  and  Chris- 
tianity;  instead  of  doing  as  Julius  II.  wished,  and  painting 
the  twelve  apostles,  in  other  words,  the  active  ministers  of 

*For  instance,  a  lady  of  Blois,  attacked  with  a  decline,  "bewitched,"  it 
was  said,  had  a  mass  said  at  Notre  Dame  des  Aides  ;  then  a  witch  lay  full 
length  upon  the  patient,  mumbling  her  wicked  charms.  The  sick  lady  was 
at  once  cured  ;  it  is  true  that,  two  months  afterwards,  she  had  a  relapse 
and  died,  but  the  witch  attributed  that  accident  to  her  own  unruly 
tongue. 

2  Witches  were  the  happy  possessors  of  a  number  of  talents  :  they  cured 
diseases  by  amulets  or  charms  ;  they  brought  hail  and  rain  ;  their  malign 
power  played  with  the  secrets  of  kings  as  well  as  of  families.  Two  young 
peasants  of  Nivernais,  stalwart  striplings  and  much  in  love,  one  day 
married  two  sisters.  On  the  evening  of  the  wedding  day,  strange  to  say, 
the  newly-married  couples,  instead  of  making  love,  fell  to  blows.  All  at 
once  someone  remembered  that  on  the  previous  Palm  Sunday  one  of  the 
young  fellows  had  refused  to  give  a  piece  of  consecrated  boxwood  to  an  old 
witch  in  that  neighbourhood,  and  that  she  had  simply  said:  "You  will 
repent  this."  Off  they  went  to  the  hag,  brought  her  back  with  them, 
gave  her  a  warm  welcome  and  a  good  meal ;  she  relented  and  allowed  one 
of  the  men  to  drink  from  her  glass  ;  he  recovered  immediately  and  his  wife 
was  satisfied.  The  other,  on  the  contrary,  who  had  not  drunk  of  the  same 
cup,  fell  ill ;  soon  he  seemed  in  imminent  danger ;  the  witch,  when  sum- 
moned, refused  to  inconvenience  herself  a  second  time  :  all  offers  and 
threats  were  alike  unavailing.  The  family  was  in  despair,  the  whole 
village  at  its  wit's  end.  The  witch  locked  herself  in  ;  a  hole  was  made  in 
the  roof,  she  was  dragged  out  with  her  husband  and  carried  off.  Arrived 
at  the  bedside  of  the  sick  man,  the  husband  said  :  "You  are  not  going  to 
die  " ;  but  the  woman  refused  to  utter  a  syllable.  Then  the  rage  of  the 
bystanders  knew  no  bounds  :  men  who  had  been  in  hiding  flung  themselves 
on  the  malevolent  hag  as  soon  as  she  withdrew,  seized  her,  and  flung  her 
into  the  fire.  Others,  more  merciful  or  more  apprehensive,  managed  to 
pull  her  out,  her  legs  horribly  burned,  carried  her  home,  and  tended  her. 
But  the  wretched  woman,  stoically  wrapping  herself  in  her  pain,  shut  her 
door,  refused  to  send  to  Nevers  for  a  doctor,  and  after  three  months  of 
agony  died  in  her  obstinate  solitude. 


428      THE  WOMEN   OF   THE   RENAISSANCE 

faith,  Michelangelo  boldly  and  triumphantly  displayed  on 
the  vaulted  arches  of  the  Sistine  chapel  seven  prophets  and 
five  sibyls,  that  is,  the  ministers  of  intuition. 

Thus  women  substituted  themselves  for  priests  as  they 
did  for  doctors,  from  a  horror  of  materialism  and  profes- 
sionalism, from  a  sense  of  duty,  an  idea  of  liberty,  a  spirit 
of  charity,  making  no  professions  of  profound  study,  but 
with  the  wholesome  aim  of  protecting  the  youthfulness  and 
beauty  of  their  souls.  Apostles  of  the  religion  of  love  and 
joy,  they  addressed  themselves  to  the  miseries  that  befall 
especially  those  whom  the  world  calls  happy  ;  the  unfor- 
tunate doubtless  have  no  time  to  think  of  their  woes;  it 
has  always  been  much  more  difficult  to  convert  the  rich,  the 
healthy,  and  the  young. 

The  idea  of  the  feminine  priesthood  very  easily  made 
headway  in  Italy:  "God  is  only  seen  through  women." 
Women  addressed  themselves  to  chosen  spirits — philo- 
sophers, writers,  preachers,  men  of  action — wno  wished  to 
see  God,  but  were  too  short-sighted.  In  the  religious  as  in 
the  other  arts,  every  prelate  of  importance  had  one  woman, 
if  not  several,  behind  him.  Bembo  was  the  friend  of 
Olympia  Morata1 — what  could  be  more  natural  ?  A  fiery, 
proud,  austere  monk  like  Ochino,  with  his  large,  bloodless 
face  and  long,  shaggy  white  beard,  hardly  seemed  likely  to 
prove  a  grand  master  in  the  feminine  freemasonry ;  yet  he 
came  in  the  end  to  lean  upon  a  bevy  of  ardent  women,  with 
Caterina  Cibo,  one  of  the  pope's  ladies,  as  their  brilliant 
head.  The  pope  himself  came  to  terms  with  the  ladies: 
Paul  III.  displayed  his  deference  for  them  on  various 
occasions,  and  especially  by  a  visit  to  Ferrara,  the  notable 
seat  of  a  feminist  council. 

Vittoria  Colonna  shines  in  the  front  rank  of  these  Mothers 
of  the  Church  ;  she  is  the  classical  woman  par  excellence. 
She  got  up  lectures  at  Naples  and  Rome.  She  sustained 
and  consoled  prelates  of  the  highest  eminence.  "  Since  the 
hatred  of  others,  the  price  I  pay  for  my  devotion,  has  not 
bereft  me  of  your  Excellency's  good-will,"  wrote  Giberto 
from  the  chancellery  at  Rome,  "  every  other  loss  seems  to  me 
but  a  trifle.  Your  Excellency  can  do  me  no  more  singular 
favour  than  to  command  me." 

1  [An  accomplished  lady  of  the  court  of  Ferrara,  who  wrote  dialogues  and 
Greek  verses,  married  a  German  physician,  and  died  at  twenty-nine.] 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  429 

Bishop  Selva  wrote  to  Cardinal  Pole :  "  Thanks  for  the 
copy  of  your  letter  to  the  marchioness  of  Pescara  on  recent 
events ;  it  is  worthy  of  that  Christian  lady."  And  the  good 
Sadoleto,  writing  also  to  Pole,  said :  "  I  have  read  the  letter 
addressed  to  you  by  the  very  saintly  and  prudent  lady  the 
marchioness  of  Pescara,  in  which  she  speaks  of  me  and 
appears  to  approve  of  our  staying  here ;  it  is  an  indescribable 
pleasure  to  me  to  see  my  counsels  approved  by  so  much 
virtue  and  wisdom." 

The  holy  passion  of  the  marchioness  for  Cardinal  Pole 
burned  with  a  highly  mystical  glow.  Vittoria  wrote  to 
this  beloved  prelate  "as  the  intimate  friend  of  the 
Bridegroom,  who  will  speak  to  me  through  you,  and 
who  calls  me  to  Him,  and  whose  will  it  is  that  I  should 
converse  on  this  subject  for  my  own  encouragement  and 
consolation." 

Religious  feminism  acclimatised  itself  in  France  with 
considerable  difficulty,  through  the  fault  of  the  women 
themselves.  They  were  habituated  to  tread  unswervingly 
the  authorised  paths  to  Paradise — fasts  and  abstinences, 
indulgences  and  pardons,  relics,  vows  and  pilgrimages.  To 
follow  in  the  procession  of  Corpus  Christi  among  their 
lackeys  bearing  torches  emblazoned  with  their  arms,  to 
wash  the  feet  of  the  poor  on  Good  Friday  and  hand  the 
poor  a  basket  of  provisions,  never  to  miss  a  sermon,  to  have 
a  mass  said  every  morning  at  a  private  altar,  to  purchase 
indulgences — that  was  the  religion  of  the  great  ladies  of 
France.  This  religion  was  accused  of  proceeding  from  a 
somewhat  mechanical  severity, and  of  proving  nothing;  and 
indeed  there  were  among  those  old-style  ladies  some  who 
were  virtuous  without  purity,  and  some  who  were  devout 
without  piety.  Among  the  middle  classes  it  was  still 
worse:  "angels  at  church,  devils  at  home,  apes  in  bed!" 
How  many  husbands  lost  their  tempers  at  finding  dinner 
not  ready,  and  learning  that  Madame  was  at  her  prayers  or 
"  slobbering  over  images " !  An  old  writer  declares  that 
there  is  no  mean  with  religious  women;  they  are  either 
sour- tempered,  peevish  or  disagreeable,  or  adulteresses. 
And  yet  the  same  preachers  whom  we  have  already  seen 
obstinately  bent  on  preserving  the  dead  level  of  morality 
vaunted  equally  the  dead  level  of  religion ;  they  were 
desperately  afraid  of  getting  above  it.     They  liked  women 


430      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

to  remain  little  girls,  incessantly  tormented  by  infinitesimal 
scruples ;  their  narrowness  of  thought,  their  passive  and 
minute  obedience  were  precisely  what  the  preachers  praised, 
such  were  the  traits  they  pretended  to  admire  in  the 
Clotildes  and  Theodelindes.1  And  if  the  Saviour  after  His 
resurrection  went  first  of  all  to  knock  at  the  gate  of  the 
Magdalene's  garden,  that  boon,  according  to  them,  was 
motived  solely  by  the  purely  passive  and  docile  spirit  of 
women.  At  Paris,  where  women  were  said  to  be  deficient 
in  high  philosophy,  "there  were  more  works  of  charity  done 
and  more  masses  said  than  were  done  or  said  between  Paris 
and  Rome."  However,  certain  flatterers  saw  virtue  every- 
where, and  went  so  far  as  to  cite  Charles  VIII.  as  an  angel, 
and  the  boulevards  of  Paris  as  a  sanctuary.  Such  reasonings 
naturally  ended  in  statu  quo. 

At  Rome  the  exact  contrary  was  the  case;  liberty  was 
especially  rife  among  the  mob  of  functionaries,  and  their 
contempt  for  the  easy-going  government  they  served  was 
unmistakeable.  Far  back  in  the  15th  century  Lorenzo 
Valla,  to  hasten  his  advancement,  declared  publicly  that 
this  government  rested  on  a  usurpation  and  a  lie.  It  was 
all  so  peaceful  and  happy !  More  than  one  man,  like  Burck- 
hardt,  would  kiss  the  pope's  toe  in  the  morning,  and  in  the 
evening  utter  blasphemies.  The  dogma  of  infallibility 
served  as  a  shelter  and  defence.  Just  as  Titian  sent  to  the 
Emperor  a  Trinity  and  a  Venus  together ;  or  Sigismundo 
Malatesta  had  a  portrait  painted  showing  him  on  his  knees 
before  madonnas ;  or  the  irreverent  Poggio  destined  his 
sons  to  the  priesthood  :  so  Aretino,  speaking  of  Saints  and 
Venuses,  lumped  them  all  as  "these  ladies,"  and  confessed 
before  he  died. 

Far  from  being  disturbed  by  theological  attacks  or  stale 
criticisms,  Rome  thought  of  nothing  but  displaying  her 
Atticism  and  rescuing  antiquity  from  its  submergence  by 
medievalism,  as  she  had  already  saved  it  from  its  sub- 
mergence by  the  barbarians. 

The  Spirit  of  God  bloweth  where  it  listeth  ! 2 

1  [Medieval   types  of  the  perfect  wife.     Clotilde  was  wife  of  Clovis  I. , 
King  of  the  Franks  (475-545) ;   Theodelinde,  Queen  of  the  Lombards  (died 
625).     Both  converted  their  husbands  to  the  Christian  faith.] 
2  Le  nom  de  foy  et  de  bonte 
A  tant  mon  esprit  mescontd, 
Que  je  croy  qu'il  est  en  nature 
Moins  de  boua  hommes  qu'en  peinture. 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  431 

As  said  the  father  of  one  of  the  cardinals,  no  man  was 
a  gentleman  unless  he  hazarded  some  heresy  or  other. 
The  sceptic  represented  by  Raphael  in  the  Miracle  of 
Bolsena  is  a  man  of  high  distinction.  Ideas,  men,  nothing 
was  safe  from  ridicule.  Two  cardinals  were  chaffing  Raphael 
for  having,  as  they  said,  given  S.  Peter  and  S.  Paul  rather  too 
ruddy  a  complexion.  "Bah!"  retorted  the  painter,  "they  are 
blushing  to  see  you  ruling  the  Church."  Castiglione  one  day 
asked  'Phaedra'  Inghirami,  with  a  smile,  why  on  Good  Friday, 
when  heathens  and  Jews,  heretics  and  bishops  are  prayed 
for,  there  is  no  prayer  for  the  cardinals.  "  Because,"  replied 
Inghirami  with  great  readiness — "  because  they  are  included 
in  the  prayer  for  heretics  and  schismatics."  The  same 
Castiglione  found  the  Duke  of  Urbino's  chaplain  to  be 
rather  long  over  mass,  and  begged  for  a  more  expeditious 
celebrant.  "  Impossible,"  replied  the  chaplain,  and  stooping 
to  the  ear  of  his  critic  added :  "  Why,  man,  I  don't  say  a 
third  part  of  the  secretae." 

The  Lateran  council  in  1512  had,  indeed,  prescribed  canon 
law  and  theology  as  part  of  the  course  of  study  for  priests. 
It  recommended  them  also  to  believe  in  the  immortality  of 
the  soul.  But  these  were  only  very  light  fetters  on  liberty 
of  thought.  When  Pomponazzi  denied  in  set  terms  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  the  Venetians,  who  had  the  logical 
minds  of  the  northern  peoples,  condemned  his  book  to  the 
flames ;  but  Leo  X.  did  not  even  reply  to  the  demand  for 
his  excommunication.  Were  there  not  many  like  him  at 
the  Vatican  ?  Were  ceremonial  and  dogma  spoken  of  much 
otherwise  there?  The  judgment  we  can  pass  on  Rome  is 
that  of  Talleyrand :  the  man  who  does  not  know  Rome  does 
not  know  the  sweetness  of  life. 

At  one  time  Adrian  VI.  was  anxious  to  restore  severer 
modes  of  thought,  but  his  aim  did  not  please  the  prelates, 
and  Clement  VI.  hastened  to  bring  back  the  spirit  of  the 
Medici,  a  "  sentimental  deism,"  to  adopt  the  apt  phrase  of 
M.  d'Haussonville,  and  to  send  "  the  imbeciles,  the  ninnies," 


(Melin  de  Saint-Gelais,  in  allusion  to  the  order  of  St.  Francis  de  Paul, 
known  as  bonhommes. ) 

["  Goodness  "  and  "  faith  "  and  all  such  cant 
With  me  find  sympathy  but  scant ; 
Nature  doth  fewer  good  men  breed 
Than  live  in  pictures  :  that's  my  creed.] 


432      THE   WOMEN   OF   THE  RENAISSANCE 

as  Berabo  called  them,  about  their  business.  The  pope 
supported  the  Protestants  against  Charles  V.  He  was  quite 
willing  to  hear  Firenzuola,  in  his  Benedictine's  gown,  read 
him  fragments  of  his  dissertations  on  love.  Paul  III.  plumed 
himself  on  continuing  this  charming  system.  Bembo  be- 
came a  sort  of  patriarch ;  his  Asolani  served  as  well  for  a 
religious  breviary  as  for  a  philosophic  formulary. 

Delightful  age,  in  which  nothing  was  hopelessly  stranded 
in  mediocrity!  in  which  the  religion  of  beauty  seemed  to  sura 
up  all  aspirations  human  and  divine,  all  the  sanctities ! 

The  cardinals  displayed  a  reasonable  magnificence  be- 
cause princes  and  lords  were  essential  to  the  kingdom  of 
God  on  earth. 

These  were  Christian  prelates,  charged  with  the  duty  of 
guiding  a  somewhat  pagan  world.  Among  them  we  neces- 
sarily meet  again  the  learned  doctors  of  love  and  wit — 
Bibbiena,  for  instance,  his  Plautus  in  his  pocket,  always 
smiling,  always  amusing,  and  philosophising  with  gusto  on 
the  oddities  of  the  moment.  "What  folly!"  is  his  incessant 
exclamation.  A  priest,  but  one  of  the  fashionable  variety  ! 
Steeped  to  the  lips  in  mythology,  and  so  refined,  so  delicate, 
that  the  naive  emotions  of  a  primitive  Madonna  leave  him 
untouched  !  Wishing  with  his  exquisite  politeness  to  offer 
a  royal  present  to  Francis  I.,  he  ordered,  not  a  Madonna, 
but  a  portrait  of  the  beautiful  Joan  of  Aragon.  That  is 
the  man  who  in  the  portrait  of  Leo  X.  stands  near  the 
pope's  chair  as  the  heart  of  his  heart. 

And  Bembo,  who  invokes  Olympus  and  speaks  of  the 
supreme  Beauty,  how  does  he  regard  the  sacred  hierarchy  ? 
He  writes  to  Isabella  d'Este  that  he  "  desires  to  serve  her 
and  please  her  as  if  she  were  the  pope."  ..."  Far  better  to 
speak  like  Cicero  than  to  be  pope."  And  he  adds  this  post- 
script: "Isabella,  my  dear,  my  dear,  my  dear,  I  kiss  thee 
with  all  my  heart  and  soul,  and  beg  thee  to  remember  me, 
as  my  big,  big  love  for  thee  merits."  That  was  his  inter- 
pretation of  charity !  But  people  were  not  particularly 
scandalised  at  these  youthful  sallies,  any  more  than  it 
occurred  to  them  to  be  shocked  at  finding  a  bishop's  palace 
peopled  with  mythological  personages,1  or  the  Corso,  on  a 
carnival  day,  gay  with  masked  cardinals. 

1  Thus  Paul  Jove  describes  the  villa  on  the  Lake  of  Como,  in  which  ho 
wrote  his  Elogia :  a   villa  fanned  by  gentle  breezes,  hung  on  a  hillside 


RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  433 

This  intellectual  indifference  would  have  had  graver 
consequences  if,  knowing  theology  so  badly  as  they  did, 
the  clergy  had  attempted  to  expound  it;  but  as  a  matter 
of  fact  they  only  scratched  the  surface  of  dogmas ;  they  were 
far  too  sensible  to  speak  of  things  they  knew  nothing  about. 
The  watchword  was  to  render  religion  lovable.  In  what 
respect  was  Sadoleto,  for  example — that  Fe'nelon  of  the  16th 
century — a  worse  priest  because  he  was  so  passionately 
devoted  to  the  humanities  and  the  arts  ?  Take  liberty  away, 
and  the  degeneracy  of  Catholic  countries  was  assured. 

To-day  everything  is  changed ;  if  Leo  X.  or  Bembo 
returned  to  the  world,  they  would  be  utterly  nonplussed 
by  the  complete  alteration  that  has  taken  place.  It  is 
in  Germany,  among  their  whilom  adversaries,  that  they 
would  recognise  the  doctrine  dear  to  them,  and  a  freedom 
of  mind  that  allows  a  man  to  call  himself  a  Christian  though 
rejecting  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ.  To  many  present- 
day  Germans,  the  kingdom  of  God  stands  for  the  whole  com- 
munity of  those  who  believe  in  the  principle  of  love.  God 
is  love:  the  kingdom  of  God — that  is,  a  state  in  which 
everyone's  actions  would  be  prompted  by  love — is  the  final 
end  of  God,  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  universal  moral 
ideal,  the  sum  and  crown  of  morality  and  religion.  Singularly 
enough,  people  are  apt  to  imagine — not,  of  course,  that  the 
founders  of  the  Reformation  professed  this  doctrine  (the 
mistake  would  be  too  glaring),  but — that  they  opened  the 
door,  cut  the  first  notch  in  the  tree,  by  starting  the  private 
reading  of  the  Scriptures.  Thus  Protestant  orthodoxy, 
which  holds  by  a  priestly  and  quasi-infallible  tradition, 
would  appear  as  a  pseudo-catholicism,  whilst  liberal  Pro- 
testantism, which  pushes  forward  with  open  mind  in  a 
boundless  field  of  thought,  would  represent  the  logical  out- 
come of  the  work  of  Luther  and  Calvin. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  believed  by  some  that  the 
armour  of  authority,  the  spirit  of  narrowness  and  officialism 

dominating  the  lake,  so  rich  in  classic  memories,  so  pure,  so  bine  ;  in  the 
episcopal  dining-room,  Apollo  and  the  Muses  presided  ;  the  drawing-room, 
dedicated  to  Minerva,  contained  busts  of  several  great  writers  of  antiquity; 
thence  one  passed  to  the  library,  then  into  the  Hall  of  the  Sirens,  then  the 
Hall  of  the  Three  Graces.  Large  windows  opened  upon  green  flower- 
bedecked  mountains,  luxuriant  valleys,  rugged  granite  peaks,  a  majestic 
horizon  of  eternal  snow,  and  indestructible  glaciers,  above  which  hung  the 
beautiful  transparent  blue  sky. 

2E 


434      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

sometimes  adopted  by  Catholicism  since  the  struggles  of  the 
16th  and  18th  centuries,  are  indispensable  to  it,  and  that  the 
Reformation  was  calculated  to  rid  it  of  that  spirit. 

On  the  contrary,  it  was  at  Rome  that  liberal  ideas  with 
the  utmost  audacity  secured  a  footing.  They  were  van- 
quished, it  is  true,  and  disappeared ;  but  if  Luther  and 
Calvin  had  the  glory  of  defeating  them,  time  in  its  turn 
has  brought  in  its  revenges,  and,  of  Luther  as  of  Calvin, 
there  is  very  little  now  remaining. 

The  liberal  Protestantism  of  the  present  day  is  the  anti- 
thesis of  the  primitive  spirit  of  the  Reformation. 

The  Reformation  had  political  and  social  sides,  of  which 
this  is  not  the  place  to  speak;  in  matters  religious,  the 
reformers  felt  a  need  of  disciplinary  reorganisation,  very 
natural,  but  not  peculiar  to  them ;  but  their  essential  aim 
was  to  create  a  reaction  against  free  thought,  to  return 
as  far  as  possible  towards  the  Middle  Ages,  to  rescue  the 
world  from  the  Roman  idealism,  which  was  the  work  of 
prelates  and  women,  and  had  sunk  into  an  intellectual 
dilettantism.  Old  Germany  desired  matter-of-fact,  or  at 
any  rate  well-advertised  virtues,  a  quasi-military  pietism, 
and  theological  reasoning.  It  revolted  against  life  in  the 
sunlight. 

Frenchwomen  were  not  thwarted  by  their  husbands  in 
regard  to  their  patronage  of  the  aesthetic  cult,  as  they  were 
in  matters  of  morality.  The  majority  of  men  professed  a 
benevolent  scepticism,  which  made  them  what  we  call 
"  moderates,"  that  is,  not  warm  partisans  of  moderate  ideas, 
but  moderate  or  even  negative  partisans  of  any  idea  what- 
ever; and  consequently  they  were  open  to  any  sort  of 
impulsion,  even  from  women.  Montaigne  wanted  but  one 
thing  to  make  him  a  mystic — namely,  mysticism :  and  the 
Montaignes  are  legion  ;  only  we  do  not  come  across  them ; 
in  their  characters  of  moderates  they  keep  in  the  shade. 

In  this  case  the  obstructors  were  the  clergy,  the  mass  of 
whom  in  France,  as  in  England  or  Germany,  made  common 
cause  with  the  nation,  instead  of  the  nation  making  common 
cause  with  them,  as  at  Rome.  They  possessed  about  a  fifth 
part  of  the  land,  and  found  themselves  tied  to  it.  The 
village  parson,  sprung  from  the  soil,  and  presented  to  a 
benefice  on  leaving  school,  did  his  duty  there  without  hope 
of  advancement,  in  the  same  spirit  that  the  lord  performed 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  435 

his  feudal  duties — rather  like  a  superior  farm-hand,  much 
less  accomplished  in  theology  or  in  platonism  than  in  mixing 
a  sauce  for  a  choice  carp,  or  in  roasting  to  a  turn  the  pullet 
he  brought  home  under  his  arm  on  his  return  from  admin- 
istering the  last  rites  to  a  dying  parishioner ;  a  jolly  good 
fellow,  and  a  capital  gossip,  but  as  far  from  a  mystic  move- 
ment or  a  crusade  on  behalf  of  the  ideal  as  the  poles.  If 
there  was  to  be  a  Reformation,  the  only  one  that  would 
have  struck  him  as  useful  would  have  been  to  authorise 
him  to  marry ;  and  French  statesmen,  although  very  good 
Catholics,  were  very  much  of  the  same  opinion.  Obviously 
it  was  still  more  impossible  to  depend,  for  upholders  of  the 
ideal,  on  a  mob  of  artisans,  tradesmen,  peasants  even, 
highly  practical  people,  who  had  got  their  poles  shaven  in 
order  to  come  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  church  courts, 
and  who,  though  clerks  only  in  name,  still  helped  to  root 
the  Church  among  the  people. 

To  meddle  with  this  obscure  and  doltish  mass  with  the 
idea  of  implanting  in  it  the  germ  of  the  beautiful  was  the 
last  thing  women  would  have  thought  of. 

There  remained  the  world  of  distinguished  abbe's,  the 
higher  clergy,  the  court  prelates ;  but,  as  benefices  served  to 
reward  merit  of  the  most  various  kinds  rather  than  to 
encourage  a  philosophic  system,  the  upper  ranks  of  the 
French  clergy  showed  a  curious  mixture — eminent  priests, 
venerable  monks,  younger  sons  or  merrybegots  of  great 
nobles,  professors,  judges,  men  of  letters.  No  one  who  did 
not  know  would  ever  have  suspected  that  Melin  de  Saint- 
Gelais  was  an  abbe'. 

Fausto  Andrelini  was  not  at  all  ashamed  to  publish  a 
letter  to  his  mistress  side  by  side  with  an  address  to  the 
Cardinal  of  Amboise,  in  which  he  solicited  ecclesiastical 
preferment. 

The  bibliennes  put  themselves  at  the  head  of  this  motley 
crew  of  great  churchmen ;  they  were  "  clergy  women,"  as 
someone  satirically  said,  and  formed  the  new  priesthood, 
the  Salvation  Army  of  that  time.  Their  simple  ambition 
was  to  raise  these  men,  these  priests,  by  one  stroke  of 
their  pinions,  into  the  empyrean,  as  in  Italy.  Convinced 
doubtless  that — to  adopt  the  phrase  of  a  distinguished 
lady — "  the  law  of  sex  and  its  pious  mysteries  lead  to  great 
sanctity,"  they  saw  shining  in  the  supreme  light  various 


436      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

groups  united  by  sympathy  and  tenderness — old  St.  Jerome 
sustained  by  young  Paula,  Francis  of  Assisi  by  sweet  Clara ; 
following  their  example,  Francis  de  Sales  and  Jeanne  de 
Chantal,  Vincent  de  Paul  and  Louise  de  Marillac  were  going 
to  lend  each  other  mutual  support,  obedient  to  the  eternal 
law — to  say  nothing  of  innumerable  holy  maidens  who 
were  lovers  of  Christ  "  in  His  sacred  humanity,"  like  St. 
Theresa,  or  who  encircled  their  ringer  with  the  ring  of  a 
mystic  marriage,  as  Jeanne  de  France  did  when  founding 
the  Annunciade.1  Faith  must  needs  become  love  and  diffuse 
a  thrilling  charm : 2  the  priest  must  cease  to  fancy  himself 
a  policeman.  How  many  poor  souls,  athirst  for  love,  have 
fallen  very  low  simply  from  want  of  an  ideal !  There  are 
sick  ones  who  might  become  artists  in  sensibility !  Women 
stretch  out  beseeching  hands  to  God,  that  He  may  help 
them  to  regard  life  with  confidence,  with  joy,  with  love. 

Margaret  of  France  was,  in  the  highest  degree,  one  of  these 
French  bibliennes,  no  debater  and  indeed  sceptical  as  to  the 
existence  of  absolute  truth  and  goodness  in  this  world,  but 
a  woman  of  quick  intuitions  and  contemplative  mind.  She 
had  faith  ;  she  believed  in  the  sacraments,3  and  did  not  deny 
purgatory ;  she  in  no  manner  sought  with  the  ladders  of 
reasoning  to  scale  the  verities  that  tower  far  above  our 
reach ;  she  preferred  to  take  to  herself  wings  and  fly  aloft. 
Men  appeared  to  her  so  petty,  so  feeble,  such  ants,  that  a 
few  merits  more  or  less  on  their  part  were  but  insignificant 
stages  in  the  long  road  between  them  and  perfect  goodness ; 
she  represented  God  to  herself  as  pure  kindliness,  indulgence 
and  love,  wherefore  it  was  necessary  to  fly  towards  him  on 
wings  of  love.  She  clung  to  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna,  not  as 
a  theologian,  but  because  "nothing  but  love  was  her 
argument." 

This  simple  explanation  of  their  principles  will  clearly 
show  in  which  species  of  clergy  the  women  would  seek  their 
allies ;  they  loved  those  who  loved  them.  They  did  not 
appreciate  the  courtier  bishop  who  played  the  hunter  or  the 

1  [A  conventual  order  for  ladies  of  rank  founded  by  the  repudiated  queen 
of  Louis  XII.] 

2  "  With  a  cable  of  love  and  fidelity  welded  together,  I  fasten  my  barque 
to  a  never-yielding  rock,  to  Jesus  Christ  the  living  stone,  whereby  I  may 
at  any  time  return  to  port."     (Vittoria  Colonna.) 

3  All  the  speakers  in  the  Heptameron  begin  by  taking  the  communion. 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  437 

warrior.  Their  friends  were  the  scholarly  prelates ;  they 
knew  well  that  platonic  love  had  little  hold,  alas !  on  the 
brilliant  youth  of  France,  and  that  divine  love  would  not 
easily  subdue  them ;  yet  by  dint  of  tenderness  they  did  not 
despair  of  success.  The  protonotary  D'Anthe  fell  sick,  and 
Margaret  at  once  sent  him  the  following  prescription — a 
decoction  of  "  pleasant  recollections  and  sure  hope  of  love," 
a  little  "  powder  of  laughter,"  a  drop  of  "  true  felicity,"  an 
extract  of  "  apple  of  love,"  in  short,  remedies  not  in  the  least 
heroic.  The  gay  Bandello's  cure  was  effected  with  a  rich 
bishopric,  that  of  Agen. 

Grave  charges  have  often  been  brought  against  this  com- 
bination of  piety  and  love,  and  naturally,  anyone  who 
does  not  understand  platonism  will  see  a  multitude  of 
more  or  less  deplorable  arriere-pensees  in  these  "spiritual 
gallantries."  In  the  17th  century  indeed  the  grave  Nicolle1 
found  a  happy  phrase  to  describe  ecclesiastics  who  dangled 
about  the  petticoats ;  he  calls  them  "  half-married  priests." 
"  Marriage  would  be  an  inept  name  for  the  unions  of 
which  we  speak.  It  is  very  natural,  surely,  that  women  of 
feeling  should  seek  their  friends  and  fellow- workers  among 
feeling  souls !  Besides,  experience  proves  that  you  can  do 
nothing  with  reasoners  except  by  force ;  only  the  sensitive 
are  converted ;  only  St.  Augustines  have  capabilities  for 
good. 

The  practical  programme  of  the  women  consisted  first  of 
all  in  their  attaching  an  extreme  value  to  the  development 
of  the  sensuous  elements  in  worship;  the  severity  of  the 
Reformers,  crudeness  and  bareness  of  ceremonial,  could  never 
attract  them ;  they  loved  pomp  and  decorum.  Religion  to 
them  was  the  very  essence  of  art ;  art  in  becoming  elevated 
shaded  off  into  religion;  only  the  inexplicable  thrill  of 
the  awakening  aesthetic  sense  can  waft  the  soul  from  the 
expressed  to  the  unexpressed.  Pleasure  is  not  the  end  of 
art ;  it  is  only  its  vehicle.     The  end  of  art  is  God. 

Eglises  viz,  s'ecrie  Marguerite,  belles,  riches,  anticques, 

Tables  d'autelz  fort  couvertes  d'ymaiges 

D'or  et  d'argent... 

Je  prins  plaisir  d'ouyr  ces  chants  nouveaulx, 

De  veoir  ardans  cierges  et  fianibeaulx, 

1  [The  moralist  who  translated  Pascal's  LeUres  provinciates  into  Latin, 
and  to  some  extent  continued  his  influence.] 


438      THE   WOMEN  OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

D'ouyr  le  son  des  cloches  hault  sonnantes 
£t  par  leur  bruyt  oreilles  estonnantes  : 
Cest  paradis  icy,  me  dis-je  alors  ... 1 

One  Good  Friday,  at  Brionne,  a  Norman  chatelaine  was 
highly  scandalised  at  the  fantastic  manner  in  which  the 
parson  rendered  the  Litany  of  the  Passion  ;  and  on  leaving 
the  church,  she  sent  for  him  and  the  following  dialogue 
ensued :  •  My  dear  sir,  I  don't  know  where  you  learnt  to 
officiate  on  such  a  day  as  this,  when  people  should  be  in  the 
depths  of  humility  ;  but  to  hear  you  render  the  service,  all 
our  devotional  thoughts  have  been  put  to  flight."  "  What 
do  you  mean,  Madam  ? "  said  the  parson.  "  Mean !  you  have 
sung  the  Passion  all  the  wrong  way.  When  our  Lord  speaks, 
you  bawl  as  if  you  were  in  a  market;  and  when  'tis 
Caiaphas  speaking,  or  Pilate,  or  the  Jews,  you  speak  as 
gently  as  any  blushing  bride.  A  fine  sort  of  parson  !  If 
you  had  your  deserts,  you'd  be  unfrocked!"  The  parson 
wriggled  out  of  the  difficulty  like  a  true  Norman,  with  a 
gibe  at  the  Jews :  "  My  dear  lady,  I  wanted  to  show  that 
with  me  Christ  is  master  and  the  Jews  are  subject  to  Him." 2 

A  sort  of  external  sensuousness  in  worship,  therefore,  formed 
an  integral  part  of  the  feminist  religion.  As  to  the  substance 
of  that  religion,  it  varied  according  to  the  women,  and  even 
according  to  the  days,  for  it  was  a  matter  of  impressions. 

It  was  fed  principally  by  the  reading  of  the  Scriptures. 

It  is  a  common  error  to  believe  that  Luther's  great  reform 
consisted  in  inculcating  the  direct  and  free  reading  of  the 
Scriptures.  The  study  of  the  Bible  was,  one  may  say, 
carried  to  excess  among  Catholic  women.  Vives  went  so 
far  as  to  make  it  one  of  his  principal  rules  for  the  education 
of  young  girls.8     And  some  people  even  vigorously  pro- 

1  [Churches  I  saw  (cries  Margaret),  rich,  beautiful,  and  old, 
And  altars  deck'd  with  images  of  silver  and  of  gold  ; 
My  heart  was  fill'd  with  pleasure  as  I  heard  new  strains  of  song, 
And  saw  the  gleaming  tapers  and  the  torches  pass  along, 
And  heard  the  merry  clash  and  clang  of  bells  high  overhead, 
To  mortal  ears  astounding :  oh,  'tis  heaven  below,  I  said.  ] 
3  Bonaventure  des  Periers,  Tale  35. 

•The  Bible  was  much  in  request.  Editions  in  the  vulgar  tongue  had 
long  been  popular  in  Germany  and  Italy.  Lefevre  d'Etaples,  who  pro- 
duced his  translation  in  1523,  had  passed  his  life  in  expounding  the  sacred 
books.  In  1514,  Charles  de  Saint-Celais  dedicated  to  Francis  L,  while  still 
only  a  prince,  a  translation  of  the  Book  of  Maccabees. 


RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  439 

tested  against  the  abuse  of  such  reading.  Before  Luther's 
time,  about  1504,  the  French  satirist  Gringoire,  as  well  as 
certain  preachers,  denounced  it  as  a  positive  scourge.1 
Later,  Brantome  waxed  indignant  at  seeing  the  Bible  in  the 
hands  of  children,  and  Montaigne  at  finding  it  discussed  at 
street  corners  or  in  back-shops. 

But  the  women  in  their  turn  were  irritated  at  the 
attempts  to  curb  their  zeal.  These  criticisms  of  men  re- 
called to  them  that  contemptible  sneak  Adam,  who  made 
excuses  for  himself  and  shuffled  on  to  his  wife  the  responsi- 
bilities of  their  common  thirst  for  knowledge. 

Was  their  imagination  distrusted  ?  they  asked.  Were 
they  thought  incapable  of  distinguishing  between  "  ancient 
rubbish  and  modern  trash  "  ?  They  found  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment rare  beauties,  to  be  sure,  but  they  were  very  far  from 
admiring  everything  blindly — the  exploits  of  some  of  the 
patriarchs — the  inconsistencies  even  of  the  Deity  himself, 
who  forbids  slaughter  and  yet  slew  !  No,  no,  the  Bible 
is  not  the  book  of  love;  it  is  the  first  of  books,  but  one 
mustn't  go  there  to  find  the  secret  of  "  changing  all  strifes 
into  sovereign  charity." 

The  Old  Testament  pleased  the  friends  of  the  religion  of 
terror — Savonarola,  and  some  French  ladies  of  the  old  style, 
devout  and  mystical  at  certain  moments,  but  in  reality 
highly  materialistic  in  their  tastes  and  their  practical  ideas. 

Others  criticised  the  Bible  as  they  did  everything  else. 
In  the  Bible,  as  in  other  things,  what  struck  them  most 
was  the  light  it  threw  on  life.  An  artist  stops  before 
a  landscape,  not  to  analyse  the  chemical  action  of  the  trees, 
or  to  discourse  on  the  species  of  gi'asses,  but  to  seize  the 
charm  of  an  effect  of  light,  of  a  picturesque  undulation  of 
the  ether ;  at  another  time,  when  the  light  falls  differently, 

Les  aucunes  sont  bibliennes 
Et  le  texte  tres  mal  exposent : 
Jeunes  bigottes,  anciennes, 
Dessus  les  Evangiles  glosent, 
Et  tout  au  contraire  proposent 
De  ce  qui  est  a  proposer. 

(Gringoire,  Les  folks  Entreprisea.) 
[Some  are  bible-women  bold, 
And  very  ill  the  text  expound  : 
Bigots  young  and  bigots  old 
Gloss  the  Gospels  round  and  round, 
Preaching  doctrine  far  from  sound.] 


440      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

the  very  same  landscape  would  not  even  attract  his  atten- 
tion, because  its  garb  would  be  less  striking.  We  do  not  well 
understand  the  synthetic  religion  of  these  women,  we  men 
of  "  fluid  and  curt  speech,"  habituated  to  analyse  everything 
with  mathematical  precision — and  not  to  look  for  grand 
opera  at  St.  Paul's.  The  practised  eye  of  a  Renaissance 
princess  allowed  itself  to  be  caressed  by  tints,  while  our 
own  seeks  geometrical  outlines.  For  the  Italians  and  their 
friends  to  love  was  to  pray }  so  that  in  the  Heptameron 
conversations  half  philosophic,  half  ribald,  come  naturally 
between  mass  and  vespers,  and  Louise  of  Savoy  mingles 
with  them  a  feeling  homily,  or  reads  a  passage  from  St. 
John,  "  meat  so  tender  .  .  .  full  of  love."  2 

The  reader  will  understand  how  difficult  it  is  to  state 
with  any  exactitude  the  developments  of  such  a  doctrine; 
they  were  different  with  different  people,  and  are  to  be  felt 
rather  than  explained.  We  have  not  to  do  here  with 
students  shut  up  in  a  smoke-filled  hall  to  construct  their 
theses ;  it  is  a  question  of  ladies,  very  great  ladies, 
habituated  to  the  most  perfect  liberty  of  action,  and  per- 
mitted by  their  rank  and  intelligence  to  hold  direct  com- 
munion with  God,  by  vision,  by  intuition  of  love.  They 
are  recognisable  by  this  characteristic.  In  her  work  the 
Adoration  of  the  Magi  (a  subject  well  worthy  of  her*  pen) 
Margaret  of  France  gives  us  her  formula :  "  To  initiate  one- 
self into  the  divine  verities,  first  by  philosophy,  then  by 
intuition,  then  by  inspiration."  Do  not  mistake,  this  is  not 
illuminism  or  pride  :  it  is  simply  candour.  These  noble 
ladies  do  not  grudge  their  pity  to  human  misery,  though 
the  sight  of  wretchedness  is  shocking  to  their  nerves  ;  but 
they  set  themselves  high  above  these  miseries,  just  as  they 
do  above  discussion.  Their  religion  is  distinguished.  The}' 
live  on  sovereign  heights,  where  they  have  no  trouble  from 

1 M.  Gebhardt  has  well  characterised  this  spirit  of  Italy  :  "The  astonish- 
ing intellectual  freedom  with  which  Italy  treated  dogma  and  discipline  ; 
the  serenity  she  was  able  to  preserve  in  face  of  the  great  mystery  of  life 
and  death  ;  the  art  she  devoted  to  the  reconciliation  of  faith  with  rational- 
ism; her  dallyings  with  formal  heresy,  and  the  audacities  of  her  mystic 
imagination  :  the  enthusiasm  of  love  which  often  carried  her  up  to  the 
loftiest  Christian  ideal— such  was  the  original  religion  of  Italy" — that  of 
the  Renaissance  as  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Alexander  II.  and  Julius  II. 
scandalised  everybody  beyond  the  borders  of  Italy  :  in  Italy,  no  one. 

"Tale  34. 


RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  441 

men  and  are  in  touch  with  their  goal.  God  is  the  first  link 
in  a  chain,  and  man  the  last.  As  Gerbert  said  :  "  In  matters 
of  action,  mankind  holds  the  first  place :  in  pure  speculation, 
God  comes  first."  It  is  meet  to  follow  God  rather  than  man. 
And  those  who  are  able  to  mount  high  are  compelled  by 
conscience  to  go  to  the  fount  and  origin  of  things,  and  look 
ideas  square  in  the  face.  In  this  respect  the  truly  primitive 
women  of  the  16th  century  are  sharply  distinguished  from 
their  daughters  of  the  18th,  whom  it  is  natural  to  compare 
to  them.  The  exquisite  and  delightful  woman  of  the  18th 
century  was  very  superficial :  she  loved  life  and  the  world 
for  their  own  sake.  A  few  hours  before  she  died  Madame 
Geoffrin,1  hearing  at  her  bedside  a  discussion  on  the  best 
means  of  securing  general  happiness,  roused  herself  once 
more  to  exclaim:  "Add  the  diligent  quest  of  pleasure,  a  thing 
not  sufficiently  attended  to."  A  profound  and  true  saying, 
remarks  D'Alembert,  and  one  that  Plato  himself  might  have 
envied.  The  16th-century  women  had  a  less  sparkling  wit, 
but  a  much  more  strongly  marked  temperament.  They 
were  concerned  only  with  brotherly  love,  and  instinctively 
recoiled  from  intolerance  in  any  form ;  they  wished  to  fuse 
the  church  with  the  ideal ;  to  them  every  idealist  was 
religious ;  but  they  also  carried  into  the  world  the  pursuit 
of  this  high  aim  of  their  aesthetic  religion — to  live  for  the 
soul,  for  God,  to  live  a  secret  inward  life  along  with  the 
actual  life.  We  may  justly  praise  their  piety,  their  charity 
towards  the  poor ;  and  yet  they  were  a  mixture :  external 
observances  were  repugnant  to  them  as  being  material  and 
obligatory;  they  loved  the  large  philosophical  faith,  God 
and  His  works. 

Here  there  is  more  than  ever  reason  to  speak  of  a  "  stork- 
love."  What  platonism  had  attempted,  religious  idealism 
effected — the  superposition  of  two  different  worlds.  It  was 
vain  to  expect  these  great  ladies  to  throw  any  ardour  into 
terrestrial  controversies  :  Ren<$e  of  France  made  her  protege" 
Richardot  a  Calvinist  or  a  Catholic  bishop,  indifferently. 
The  material  mechanism  of  divine  grace  appeared  to  them 
to  have  been  devised  for  the  vulgar,  and  to  be  of  a  quite 
relative  truth.  They  did  not  see  why  the  delicate  ray 
of  grace,  the  impalpable  word  of  consolation,  before  it  could 

*[A  wealthy  bourgeoise  who  held  a  literary  salon  frequented  by  the 
Encyclopaedists — Diderot,  D'Alembert,  and  the  rest.] 


442      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

penetrate  into  the  dark  haunts  of  wretchedness,  should  neces* 
sarily  have  to  borrow  the  form  of  a  bearded  monk  or  an 
unkempt  parson  splashed  to  the  chin.  They  would  rather 
hear  with  their  own  ears  that  still  small  voice  which  said  to 
St.  Theresa :  "  I  will  not  henceforth  that  ye  commune  with 
men,  but  only  with  angels." 

Priests  were  men  appointed  to  the  service  of  the  Church, 
and  not  demi-gods.  Some  were  pleasant  and  cultured,  just 
as  there  were  excellent  abbesses  ;  but  to  spend  one's  life  in 
the  vestries,  or  not  to  be  able  to  move  a  finger  without 
referring  to  one's  clergyman,  struck  Margaret  as  sheer  in- 
sanity. For  herself,  she  would  rather  talk  with  a  sceptic  or 
a  clever  atheist  than  with  a  vulgar  parson,  because  after  all 
the  atheist  would  aid  her  to  accomplish  her  end,  namely, 
to  draw  near  to  God  through  the  Beautiful.  Nothing  was 
more  natural  than  to  love  God  and  abase  oneself  in  deed 
and  in  truth  before  Him,  God  being  intelligence  and  King 
of  kings ;  but  what  was  the  good  of  intermediaries,  often 
so  gross  ?  Clement  Marot,  who  saw  through  Margaret  with 
wonderful  acumen,  defines  her  as  "  woman  in  body,  man  in 
heart,  angel  in  head."  The  friends  of  the  princess  declare 
that  "from  the  age  of  fifteen  she  seemed  directly  inspired  by 
the  spirit  of  God,  in  eyes  and  features,  in  gait  and  speech,  in 
all  her  actions." 

The  Bishop  of  Meaux  assures  her  that  by  reading  a 
translation  of  the  Gospels  he  offers  her  she  will  be  as  a 
holy  apostle  and  will  receive  directly  the  Spirit  of  God, 
just  as -well,  he  adds,  "as  when  we"  (that  is,  the  common 
herd)  "  receive  Him  in  the  Eucharist." 

Thus  the  women  aimed  at  being  angels  and  the  word  of 
God.  In  this  lofty  mysticism,  they  exhibited  a  striking 
contrast  to  the  easygoing  and  lukewarm  Catholicism  of  the 
mob. 

Some  of  their  writings  permit  us  to  recognise  how,  little 
by  little,  this  great  religious  work  was  accomplished  in  their 
emotional  life. 

Vittoria  Colonna  has  left  us  the  type  of  the  final  prayer 
of  the  Renaissance :  a  petition  for  peace  and  happiness  in  this 
world  and  the  next.1     It  is  an  aspiration,  a  strain  of  sweet 

'"Grant,  I  beseech  thee,  Lord,  that  by  the  humility  that  becomes  the 
creature  and  by  the  pride  thy  greatness  demands,  I  may  adore  thee 
always,  and  that,    in  the  fear   thy  justice  imposes,   as  in  the  hope  thy 


EELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  443 

and  tender  music,  a  melody  of  Gounod,  rather  than  a 
doctrine :  it  is  the  result  of  the  co-operation  of  souls  in  one 
common  striving  toward  the  most  perfect  joys. 

We  have  under  our  eyes  the  works  of  three  Frenchwomen 
who,  though  contemporaries,  show  us  the  progressive  stages 
of  this  co-operation. 

The  first,  Gabrielle  de  Bourbon,  Dame  de  la  Trdmoille, 
still  preserves  in  her  Chdteau,  "a  feminine  work,"  as  she 
says,  a  character  of  morality  rather  than  art.  The  spirit 
which  will  renew  everything,  chisel  everything,  which  is 
gaily  to  open  doors  and  windows,  has  not  yet  come  by. 
Within,  no  doubt,  there  are  ravishing  delights — apostolic 
visions,  prophets  and  sibyls  on  the  vaulted  arches  as  at  the 
Sistine ;  angel's  food  distributed  amidst  a  floating  radiance 
of  light!  But  all  is  regular,  inflexible,  and  severe;  the 
contemplative  heart  has  begun  by  employing  the  besom  of 
discipline. 

And  externally  this  castle  of  the  Christian  soul,  somewhat 
resembling  the  Alhambra,  shows  a  rugged  and  bristling 
front.  Love  fires  the  cannon  on  the  ramparts,  whilst 
Inspiration  surveys  the  country  round,  and  in  the  tiny 
garden  of  Felicity  where  flows  the  stream  of  Pity,  good 
souls  gather  exquisite  white  flowers,  luscious  fruits,  and 
leafy  brauches. 

In  another  work,  the  Spiritual  Journey,  a  story  of  the 
adventures  of  a  soul  wandering  upon  the  earth,  Gabrielle 
undisguisedly  raises  her  standard  against  the  new  divinities 
— Presumption  who  loves  flowery  paths ;  Self-love,  hostile 
to  terrible  dogmas  ;  Vain-glory,  uncommonly  like  Margaret 
of  France.  Poverty  and  Virginity  are  still  her  friends,  and 
she  gives  a  na'ive,  heart-breaking,  monstrous  description  of 
the  world — a  giant  with  innumerable  hands,  each  quivering 
tentacle  of  which,  at  odds  with  the  rest,  brandishes  some 
weapon,  a  book  or  a  sword.  Charity  defeats  this  monster, 
Faith  triumphs.  Gabrielle  de  Bourbon,  as  she  herself  said, 
wrote  for  the  simple  ;  she  did  not  plume  herself  on  "  under- 
standing Holy  Writ." 

clemency  justifies,  I  may  live  eternally  and  submit  to  thee  as  the  Almighty, 
follow  thee  as  the  All-wise,  and  turn  towards  thee  as  towards  Perfection 
and  Goodness.  I  beseech  thee,  most  tender  Father,  that  thy  living  fire 
may  purify  me,  thy  radiant  light  illumine  me ;  that  this  sincere  love  for 
thee  may  profit  me  in  such  wise  that,  never  finding  let  or  hindrance  in 
things  of  this  world,  I  may  return  to  thee  in  happiness  and  safety." 


444.      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

But  ere  long  comes  a  genuine  noblewoman,  Catherine 
d'Amboise,  lady  of  Beaujeu,  who  in  her  Devout  Epistles 
utters  this  loyal  cry  : 

J'ay  transgress^  tous  les  command emens ... 
Pour  abreger,  aucun  je  n'eu  excepte.1 

She  has  only  one  noble  thing  left  to  her — her  heart ;  and  that 
she  otters  to  God.  Then  follow  effusions  in  a  lofty  strain, 
full  of  antiquity,  biblical  allusions,  "sibyl  songs,"  a  plea  for 
mercy  and  love ;  and  Christ  puts  on  her  finger  the  ring  of 
peace,  benediction,  and  remission  of  sins  ;  He  becomes  her 
spouse  and  lover,  and  for  guardian  gives  her  an  angel. 
With  Catherine  d'Amboise  we  win  to  a  wondrous  pleasant 
and  aristocratic  paradise,  composed  of  "fair  manors  and 
castles."  To  the  15th-century  woman  has  succeeded  the 
biblienne. 

Margaret  gives  the  last  upward  impulse  above  the 
anonymous  and  often  ill-thought-out  work  of  the  crowd : 
to  prove  her  independence,  she  adopts  an  abstract  and  lofty 
aim. 

Not  that  everything  is  admirable  or  even  comprehensible 
in  her  mystical  works.  Her  correspondence  with  Briconnet, 
where,  in  interminable  letters  of  eighty  or  a  hundred 
pages,  she  twaddles  about  "  confection  of  tribulations,"  '*  old 
skins  "  of  the  spirit ;  various  writings  of  hers — The  Mirror 
of  the  Sinful  Soul,  the  Strife  between  Flesh  and  Spirit,  the 
Orison  to  Jesus  Christ,  the  Orison  of  the  Faithful  Soul — 
these  are  very  curious,  precisely  as  types  of  incomprehensi- 
bility and  the  despair  of  reason.  They  do  not  evidence  a 
veiy  placid  psychology:  "Worse  than  dead,  worse  than 
sick  " — such  is  the  author,  according  to  her  mottoes  ;  there 
were  days  when  she  hated  doctrine  of  any  kind,  the  Bible, 
the  Gospels  included.2 

1 1  have  transgressed  all  God's  Holy  laws  ; 
To  stint  my  story,  I  except  not  one. 

8  Las,  tous  ces  motz  ne  voulois  escouter, 
Mais  encore  je  venois  a  douter 
Si  c'estoit  vous,  ou  si  par  adventure 
Ce  n'estoit  rien  qu'une  simple  escripture. 

[I  would  not  hear  those  words,  but  still 
A  doubt  my  wearied  soul  would  fill, 
Whether  'twere  very  you  indeed, 
Or  chance  had  given  me  trash  to  read.] 


RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  445 

She  learnt  the  death  of  her  brother  intuitively,  in  a 
dream.  From  that  time  the  world  crushed  her;  mystics 
know  that  thus  "  the  incorporate  soul  makes  her  course  for 
the  port  of  salvation."  Margaret's  mysticism  became  a 
blind  infatuation,1  a  drunkenness  of  love,  in  which  divine 
and  human  elements  were  commingled,2  and  which  mani- 
festly had  for  object  to  banish  from  sight  many  of  the 
miseries  of  life. 

It  is  in  the  book  entitled  The  Triumph  of  the  Lamb  that 
we  see  best  delineated  the  Christ  of  her  heart,  her  divine 
Saviour  and  emancipator,  shedding  a  radiance  above  the 
grimy  factory  of  life.  Death  itself  becomes  lovely,  and, 
like  a  "  courteous  friend,"  opens  the  gates  of  heaven  to  well- 
nigh  all  mankind.3 

Mankind  has  a  right  to  clemency,  unstinted,  immeasur- 
able ;  in  fashioning  us  of  a  somewhat  coarse  clay,  Heaven 
did  not  mean  to  make  us  all  unhappy.  Margaret  has  a 
horror  of  death.4  But  Love  reassures  her,  helps  her  to 
pierce  the  mystery.  Not  as  an  avenger,  but  as  a  lamb  will 
Christ  render  justice  at  the  Judgment  Day.      Men   were 

1  In  her  ComAdie  sur  le  trespas  du  Roy  the  shepherdess  Amarissima  (that 
is,  she  herself)  mourns  the  death  of  the  god  Pan  ;  she  no  longer  believes  in 
anything — either  human  virtue,  or  human  consolations,  or  even  the  old-time 
constancy.  She  has  lost  her  philosophy  !  In  the  end,  the  Paraclete  comes 
to  restore  our  serenity  by  the  assurance  that  Pan  is  tasting  Elysian  joys  in 
the  eternal  meadows.  At  the  carnival  of  Mont-de-Marsan  in  1547,  the 
princess,  shaking  off  mournful  preoccupations,  put  another  comedy  on  the 
stage,  in  which  she  brought  into  opposition  a  beautiful  lady  of  fashion,  a 
superstitious  lady  who  speaks  of  death  and  paradise,  and  a  wise  woman  who 
advocates  equilibrium  of  soul  and  body;  then  the  "Queen  of  God"  (we 
may  guess  who  she  is)  upsets  it  all — the  world,  superstition,  and  wisdom — 
with  a  philosophic  panacea  of  divine  and  human  love  commingled.  We 
shall  not  be  expected,  however,  to  follow  Margaret  in  the  meanderings  of 
her  thought,  nor  even  in  her  prayers  "  of  the  faithful  soul,"  or  "to  Jesus 
Christ" — earnest  appeals  to  the  love  and  favour  and  mercy  of  the  Most 
High,  who  can  save  us  only  by  love. 

2  See  the  close  of  the  Navire,  a  poem  devoted  to  the  praise  of  love  and 
to  the  glorification  of  the  beauty  and  virtues  of  the  late  king  Francis  L 

•"  Souvienne  toy  qu'ilz  sont  nds  imparfaitz, 
Et  que  de  chair  fragile  tous  sont  faitz." 
[Remember  that  imperfect  were  they  born, 
And  of  frail  flesh  God's  creatures  all  are  made.] 
*  "  Priez  Dieu  pour  les  trespassez, 
Dont  le  retour  est  incongneu." 
[Pray  God  for  sinners  whose  return 
From  Death's  far  bourn  is  all  unknown.] 
Very  few  have  returned,  "  the  way  is  long  ! " 


446      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

complaining  of  the  facility  of  indulgences ;  Margaret  settles 
the  question  off-hand ;  she  proposes  a  general  pardon. 

Of  mysticism,  as  well  as  of  love,  there  were  already 
innumerable  varieties  known.  Perugino,  Averulino,1  the 
preachers  of  the  royalty  of  Christ,  St.  Bernardin  of  Sienna, 
Savonarola,  and  many  another,  carried  on  the  great  traditions 
of  Italy.  France  too,  though  more  stubborn,  had  her  mystics, 
especially  at  Rouen  and  in  Picardy,  where  the  palinodists,2 
elects  souls,  magistrates,  municipal  counsellors,  had  long 
been  singing  praise  to  the  Virgin  and  reviling  the  body : 

La  chair,  quoy  ?  nourriture  mortelle  ! 
L'esprit  d'amour  nourrit  le  cueur  fidele  ! 8 

These  palinodists  were  men  of  intelligence  and  ardour. 
Asking  nothing  of  the  clergy,  whom  they  riddled  with 
pungent  epigrams,  they  had  recourse  to  worldly  means  to 
spread  their  ideas,  such  as  competitions  and  dramatic  per- 
formances. They  resembled  the  women  in  their  excessive 
cult  of  the  intellect,  their  unceasing  itch  for  writing  and 
speaking,  their  taste  for  mystery  and  incognito.  It  was  the 
same  in  regard  to  their  impressions :  they  desired  to  bring 
into  relief  the  true  life  of  Christ,  that  is,  the  mystic  and 
inward  life  which  they  held  the  rude  apostles  to  have  over- 
much neglected.  Assuredly  theirs  was  a  noble  aim. 
Margaret  was  on  excellent  terms  with  the  palinodists.  Yet 
the  mysticism  of  platonism  was  different,  implying  a  much 
more  general  abstraction :  it  mistrusted  the  senses,  the 
material  form,  desirous  of  seeing  the  reality  of  things,  the 
essence  of  God.  Among  the  prelates  it  gave  rise  to  that 
exquisite  academy  of  devotion  and  prayer,  the  Oratory  of 
the  Divine  Love,  which  met  at  Rome  in  the  church  of  SS. 
Silvester  and  Dorothea  Transtevera  during  the  pontificate 
of  Leo  X.,  and  which  numbered  among  its  members  sixty 
priests  and  prelates,  Sadoleto  being  one  of  the  chief.     They 

1  [The  architect  and  sculptor  (1400-1469)  known  as  Philaretes,  who 
mingled  pagan  mythology  and  Christian  legend  in  his  designs  for  the 
bronze  gates  of  St.  Peter's,  and  in  his  Treatise  on  Architecture  taught  that 
a  true  architect  should  possess  all  the  virtues.  ] 

2  [The  palinod  was  properly  a  poem  in  honour  of  the  Immaculate  Concep- 
tion. Several  such  poems  were  recited  on  a  set  day,  and  a  prize  was 
awarded  to  the  best.] 

*  The  flesh  !     'Tis  mortal,  fed  with  mortal  food  ! 
Love's  spirit  nourishes  true  hearts  and  good. 


RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  447 

gave  all  their  thoughts  to  the  reformation  of  morals,  and  among 
them  prayer  rose  delicately  to  Heaven,  like  those  wreaths  of 
fire  the  Bible  shows  us  on  altars  pleasing  to  the  Lord. 

Feminine  mysticism  was  broader :  its  aim  was  to  develop 
happiness,  in  other  words,  to  lead  us  to  the  summit  of  an 
ideal  world,  full  of  love  and  purity.  Love,  having  lost  the 
egotistic  and  licentious  character  without  which  the  French 
mind  refused  to  understand  it,  having  become  an  aspiration 
for  the  French  as  well  as  for  the  idealist  races,  represented 
the  very  substance  of  the  world  ;  it  was  divine  and  eternal ; 
it  gathered  up  all  things,  even  men,  into  the  heart  of  God. 
The  Gospel  was  only  the  practical  expression  of  this  high 
natural  law,  of  which  the  pagans  long  ago  had  caught 
glimpses,  and  to  which  Seneca  ventured  darkly  to  allude 
when  he  wrote,  "  When,  tell  me,  will  you  love  one  another  ?  " 
The  Gospel  was  the  sum  and  crown  of  human  wisdom. 
Hence  Erasmus  wished  to  canonise  Virgil,  and  to  add  to  the 
Litany  a  new  response — "  St.  Socrates,  pray  for  us."  Plato 
was  quoted  in  the  pulpit ;  Anne  of  France,  who  was  ortho- 
doxy itself,  took  pains  to  mingle  the  philosophers  with  the 
Fathers.  Trajan  was  regarded  as  a  model ;  Louis  XII.  and 
Guevara,  the  tutor  of  Charles  V.,  lived  on  the  maxims  of 
Marcus  Aurelius. 

They  aimed  at  a  sort  of  natural  mysticism,  the  object  of 
which  would  be  to  express  the  essence  of  mundane  things. 
"  It  is  God,"  said  Rivio,1  "  who  giveth  to  the  sky  its  splen- 
dours, to  the  trees  their  shade,  to  the  cheering  vines  their 
clusters  and  fruit.  It  is  He  who  clotheth  the  earth  with 
fruitful  crops,  who  causeth  the  trees  to  bud  and  the  crystal 
streams  to  gush  forth,  who  covereth  the  meadows  with  a 
carpet.  Wherefore  to  hunt  and  fish  and  reap,  to  fulfil  all 
the  conditions  of  life, — this  is  to  be  a  Christian." 

No  one  had  any  bent  towards  naturalism,  or  imagined 
that  everything  that  is  natural  should  be  regarded  as  good 
or  beautiful ;  on  the  contrary,  men  wished  to  elevate  and 
improve  Nature,  even  to  excess.  Your  vineyard,  say,  always 
yields  bad  wine;  M.  Zola  would  tell  you  to  drink  it, 
Rousseau  to  drink  water :  but  these  folk  of  the  Renaissance 
would  tell  you  to  distil  it  into  brandy.  From  Nature  they 
wished  to  borrow  certain  quasi-mystical  powers  which  exist 
in  her  in  force.    Hence  this  mysticism  did  not,  like  that  of  St. 

1  [Author  of  De  perpetuo  in  terris  {/audio  piorum.     Basle,  1558.] 


448      THE   WOMEN   OF   THE   RENAISSANCE 

Theresa,  lead  to  the  deliberate  rejection  of  all  earthly 
satisfactions,  to  the  adoration  of  death,  suffering  and  humili- 
ation. Carpe  diem  was  their  motto,  as  it  was  of  Horace  and 
Lorenzo  de'  Medici.  They  left  to  Albert  Diirer  and  other 
Germanic  artists  the  monopoly  of  dances  of  death  and 
maidens  carried  off  in  the  arms  of  skeletons. 

"For  loss  of  servitors  we  need  not  despair,  for  many 
others  are  to  be  had " :  so  spoke  the  fair  ladies,  not  out  of 
indifference,  but  out  of  fear  lest  the  mournful  idea  should 
trouble  their  hearts :  for  "  there  is  none  of  us,  if  she  regards 
her  loss,  but  has  occasion  for  deep  sorrow."1  When  we  ask 
history  or  romance  or  the  drama  to  carry  us  for  a  time  out 
of  ourselves,  do  not  we  too  seek,  in  reality,  the  satisfaction 
of  forgetting  death — perchance,  of  forgetting  life  ? 

That  was  the  very  human  root  of  this  mysticism.  In 
turning  back  to  the  page  of  love,  no  one  wished  to  feel  under 
the  fingers  the  page  of  death.  Far  from  forgetting  life, 
they  affirmed  it:  the  secret  of  life  was  life  itself.  They 
mocked  at  death.  A  skeleton  at  the  feast,  a  spectre  at  the 
ball,  were  subjects  for  laughter.  Like  Boccaccio,  Machiavelli 
sets  his  gayest  stories  in  a  horrible  framework  of  pestilence; 
rich  folk  laugh  and  make  love  under  cool  leafy  shades ;  and 
their  excuse  is  that,  but  a  few  paces  off,  death  is  grinning  at 
them.  Such  is  the  key  to  this  novel  mysticism.  It  is  a 
tragic  dance  of  fragilities ;  but  the  dancers  see  nothing 
fragile.  They  forge  for  themselves  an  artificial  weapon, 
they  prefer  beauty  to  truth. 

It  followed  from  the  same  ideas  that  they  held  direct 
communion  with  God.  The  tender  worship  of  the  Virgin, 
fallen  a  little  out  of  use,  no  longer  throve  except  stealthily  in 
a  corner,  like  the  beautiful  plant  which  the  Flemish  painters 
loved  to  represent  in  a  crystal  vase.2     Communication  with 

1  Heptameron,  Prologue. 

2  This  was  before  Luther,  or  independently  of  him.  Erasmus  pleasantly 
scoffs  at  prayers  to  the  Virgin  or  to  St.  Christopher,  and  is  convinced  that 
the  vows  of  sailors  during  a  tempest  are  to  be  traced  simply  to  paganism, 
the  ancient  worship  of  Venus,  "  Star  of  the  Seas."  He  has  glorified  the 
Virgin  in  cold  but  elegantly  rhetorical  verses,  in  which  the  Styx,  Phlegethon, 
Helicon,  and  the  Castalian  fount  proclaim  the  new  spirit.  While  in  former 
days  Louis  XL,  for  the  slightest  tribulation,  struck  a  medal  to  the  Virgin 
or  went  on  a  pilgrimage,  neither  Louis  XII.  nor  Francis  I.,  who  will  not  be 
regarded  as  Lutherans,  had  any  such  idea ;  in  an  extreme  case,  Louis  XII. 
pays  his  vows  direct  in  the  Holy  Eucharist.  Rannazaro,  who  remained 
faithful  to  the  Virgin,  declared  himself  of  Spanish  descent. 


RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  449 

heaven  was  opened  by  means  of  conspicuous  semaphores, 
though  these  unhappily  were  irregular  and  far  apart. 
St.  Theresa,  like  a  genuine  freelance,  might  speak  of  storm- 
ing heaven,  and  carrying  its  successive  redoubts  one  by  one; 
but  the  philosophic  idea  was  different — a  simple  canter  in  a 
friendly  country.  On  some  beautiful  day  in  May,  when 
Nature,  overflowing  with  love,  scatters  her  gifts  in  careless 
profusion,  a  certain  Knight,  Beau-Doulx  by  name,  sets  off 
among  the  flowery  meadows  to  conquer  this  "noble  and 
delectable  castle  of  Love,"  all  sapphires  and  emeralds  from 
base  to  turret.  He  bears  with  him  no  canncn,  no  scaling 
ladders.  Arrived  beneath  the  walls,  he  sinks  on  his  knees 
and  declares  his  love.  That  is  all  That  is  "  the  realm  of 
Paradise,  wherein  is  love  divine." 

Nature  hails  God  in  us,  and  reveals  God  to  us.  The  song 
that  rises  from  the  sea  soars  even  to  the  stars;  the  luxuriant 
warmth  of  the  air  is  a  symbol  of  mercy.  Such  a  temple  was 
better  loved  than  the  frantic  mysticism  of  certain  northern 
cathedrals.  As  for  the  rites  of  this  worship,  they  were 
those  of  platonism.  Salvatorio  wrote  a  Treasury  of  Holy 
Scripture  after  the  Poems  of  Petrarch:  Fra  Feliciano 
Umbruno  offered  to  the  ladies  of  Rome  a  Dialogue  on  the 
sweet  death  of  Jesus  Christ,  this  too  inspired  by  Petrarch. 
Fra  Malipiero  presented  the  famous  Spiritual  Petrarch, 
which  appeared  at  Venice  in  1536  and  ran  into  the  tenth 
edition.  The  spiritualisation  of  sonnets  was  effected  easily 
enough :  but  anyone  who  wished  to  amend  the  canzoni  and 
miscellaneous  poems  had  a  troublesome  task, 

The  religion  of  love  found  an  incomparable  interpreter 
in  Correggio.  Correggio  is  the  painter  of  women.  How 
wonderfully  he  translates  their  dream  of  love  and  confidence, 
in  harmony  with  the  code  of  aesthetic  Christianity !  In 
his  Saint  Jerome,  the  Virgin  is  beautiful  to  look  upon,  of  a 
human,  piquant,  smiling  beauty ;  but  the  whole  effect  of  the 
picture  is  derived  from  the  face  of  the  Magdalene,  and  her 
intensely  caressing  attitude :  it  is  the  apotheosis  of  the 
caress'  Never,  perhaps,  has  love  all-embracing,  soft  as 
velvet,  been  so  warmly  expressed :  prayer,  passion,  all  is 
cast  into  the  shade  by  this  contemplation  of  pure  love,  this 
contact,  enchanting,  radiant,  of  two  beings  united  by  a 
magnetic  tenderness.  The  child  Jesus  has  behind  Him  an 
angel  representing  heaven  ;  before  Him  St.  Jerome  holds  an 

2f 


450     THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

open  book ;  but  He  turns  about,  bestowing  His  gracious 
smile  upon  the  Magdalene,  whom  He  prefers  to  all  human 
learning  because  she  is  Love. 

At  the  Louvre,  too,  the  Mystic  Marriage  fills  one's  heart 
with  a  golden,  sunny  vision.  "  It  is  impossible,"  says  Vasari, 
"  to  see  more  beautiful  hair,  lovelier  hands,  a  more  natural 
and  charming  colouring."  In  this  ardent  "  conversation  " 
life  seems  to  be  suspended :  "  The  will  is  changed  to  love, 
the  memory  appears  to  have  vanished,  and  the  understanding 
has  ceased  to  act." 

Devotion  is  often  accused  of  being  tiresome.  It  is  true 
that  God  has  no  revelation  to  make  to  Himself;  He  is  the 
immortality  of  the  known.  The  women  who  lived  on  such 
lofty  ideas  readily  assumed  a  profound  and  pensive  air, 
an  expression  of  intelligence  and  trenchancy  rather  than 
tenderness.  Like  the  wounded  soldier  at  Austerlitz  of 
whom  Tolstoi  speaks,  they  awoke  in  the  vast  silence  of  the 
night,  alone  with  the  clear  bright  stars. 

Where  men  would  have  brought  their  pride,  women 
brought  their  sweetness.  Their  language  was  a  little 
involved  and  "  precious." 

Yet  we  can  see  from  the  correspondence  of  Margaret  of 
France  and  Vittoria  Colonna,  how  sincerely  they  thought 
themselves  happy.  These  two  ladies  never  saw  each  other. 
Vittoria  writes  that  while  awaiting  the  infinite  happiness  of 
a  meeting,  she  ventures  to  reply  to  the  "high  and  religious" 
words  of  the  princess,  so  as  to  act  as  balance-weight  to  that 
celestial  timepiece.  "In  our  day,  the  long  and  difficult 
journey  of  life  compels  us  to  have  a  guide ;  it  seems  to  me 
that  everyone  can  find  in  his  own  sex  the  most  appropriate 
models.  ...  I  turned  towards  the  illustrious  ladies  of 
Italy  to  find  examples  for  imitation,  and  though  I  saw 
many  virtuous  among  them  .  .  .  yet  one  woman  alone,  and 
she  not  in  Italy,  seemed  to  me  to  unite  the  perfections  of 
the  will  with  those  of  the  intellect ;  but  she  was  so  high 
placed  and  so  far  away  that  my  heart  was  filled  with  the 
gloom  and  fear  of  the  Hebrews  when  they  perceived  the  fire 
and  glory  of  God  on  the  mountain-top,  and  durst  not  draw 
near  because  of  their  imperfection." 

In  this  first  letter  the  marchioness  contents  herself  with 
glorifying  the  humility  and  charitableness  of  her  noble 
correspondent,  whose  daughter  she  humbly  calls  herself,  or 


RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  451 

better,  her  John  Baptist,  her  Forerunner:  these  personal 
compliments  always  play  an  important  part  in  feminine 
diplomacy,  full  of  splendid  courtesy.  She  speaks  of  her 
group  of  friends ;  she  often  enjoys,  she  adds,  the  conversa- 
tion of  Pole,  who  "is  always  in  the  heavens,  and  only 
descends  to  earth  to  do  service  to  others,"  and  that  of 
Bembo,  one  of  the  labourers  of  the  eleventh  hour,  perhaps, 
but  eminently  worthy,  by  reason  of  his  ardour,  of  the  wages 
of  the  first ;  and  all  these  friends  of  hers  unite  in  contem- 
plating from  afar  this  queen  of  gems,  so  rich  in  radiance 
that  she  enriches  others. 

In  another  letter  Vittoria  grapples  more  closely  with  the 
burning  questions  of  the  day.  She  affirms  her  respect  for 
reason,  but  she  prefers  religion,  "  the  supreme  perfection  of 
our  soul,"  the  perfect  beauty.  For  the  better  unfolding  of 
her  theme  she  encloses  a  copy  of  her  sonnets. 

This  copy,  though  addressed  to  the  sister  of  the  king,  was 
intercepted  in  the  post  by  order  of  the  Constable  de  Mont- 
morency. Whether  he  read  the  sonnets  or  not  is  very 
doubtful ;  in  any  case  he  judged  them  to  be  pernicious  stuff, 
and  seized  the  opportunity  of  indulging  in  the  luxury  of  an 
explosion.  He  only  gave  up  the  book  after  a  stormy 
scene  at  the  king's  table. 

Vergerio,1  the  amiable  prelate  who  was  the  pope's  nuncio- 
in  France,  had  great  difficulty  also  in  meeting  Margaret. 
How  ample  was  his  reward  when  he  succeeded !  His  first 
audience,  which  lasted  not  less  than  four  hours,  seemed  to 
him  far  too  short  to  satisfy  his  "  spiritual  enthusiasm."  He 
lost  not  a  moment  in  committing  to  paper  all  that  had  been 
said,  in  order  to  show  to  what  altitudes  of  Grace  and  divine 
Love  "mounts  the  spirit  of  the  queen."  But  how  was  it 
possible  to  transfer  to  paper  so  much  spontaneous  eloquence, 
so  much  fervour,  so  potent  a  charm  ?  ...  It  was  not  a  very 
comfortable  conversation.  Margaret  could  speak  no  language 
but  French,  and  as  Vergerio  was  hardly  at  home  in  it,  she 
spelt  out  her  words,  so  to  speak,  mingling  with  them  as 
much  Latin  and  Italian  as  she  could.  For  all  this,  when 
Vergerio  took  his  leave,  in  his  ravishment  he  fancied  he  saw 
the  glaciers  of  the   human   heart  melting  under  the  hot 

1  [Disappointed  of  a  cardinalate,  he  undertook  a  polemic  against  the 
Reformers,  but  was  led  to  adopt  their  views.  He  had  met  Luther  at 
Wittenberg.] 


452      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

beams  of  faith,  and  breathed  the  wonderful  breath  of  God. 
Whence  came  this  miracle?  "Praise  be  to  Jesus  Christ, 
who  in  our  troublous  times  hath  raised  up  such  intelligences 
— here  the  queen  of  Navarre,  of  whom  I  speak ;  at  Ferrara 
the  lady  Rene'e  of  France;  at  Urbino  the  lady  Leonora 
Gonzaga,1  both  of  whom  I  have  seen  here,  with  whom  I 
conversed  for  several  hours,  and  who  seemed  to  me  endowed 
with  eminently  lofty  minds,  filled  with  charity,  all  on  fire 
with  Christ ;  at  Rome  the  lady  Vittoria  Colonna — to  speak 
of  none  but  your  own  sex."  And  he  repeats  that  the  thorns 
in  the  Saviour's  vine  are  fast  disappearing ;  thanks  to 
women,  he  sees  the  radiance  of  light  and  peace. 

Vergerio  continued  to  converse  with  the  queen  of  Navarre 
with  ever-renewed  joy.  One  is  almost  ashamed  to  tran- 
scribe with  a  cold  pen  phrases  so  ardently  trustful  and 
palpitating :  "  I  have  in  sooth  no  greater  wealth,  no  greater 
consolation  than  this  queen ;  she  has  words  of  infinite 
warmth,  and  marvellous  means  for  uplifting  to  the  service 
of  God  hearts  that  are  cold  and  dead.  It  happens  that  for 
eighteen  days  I  did  not  appear  at  court,  but  dwelt  in  sweet 
retirement,  busy  cultivating  my  soul  and  sowing  within 
myself  the  word  of  God.  Then  went  I  where  the  queen's 
glowing  charity  was  found,  and  I  felt  that  she  caused  the 
seed  to  spring  up  and  wax  strong  and  bring  forth  fruit,  in 
other  words  the  knowledge  of  God  and  the  fervent  desire  to 
serve  Him,  and  Him  alone." 

Such  were  these  lofty  spirits,  so  enthusiastic  for  the 
beautiful.  They  lived  on  poetry  in  a  sphere  apart,  cheering 
one  another,  mutually  calmed  and  comforted ;  it  was  after 
her  interviews  with  Vergerio  that  Margaret  declared  herself 
a  platonist  and  shook  off  the  yoke  of  the  court.  No  one 
hoped,  of  course,  that  the  whole  world  would  chime  in 
tune ;  they  well  knew  that  when  these  abstractions 
filtered  down  to  the  mob  they  would  become  materialised, 
and  love  itself  would  ofttimes  become  tainted.  But  was  it 
not  a  beautiful  thing  to  sow  love  broadcast  with  no  hope  of 
reaping,  and  to  go  forth  like  angels  of  God  to  pour  a  little 
dew  on  the  parched  ground  ? 

This  was  not  destined  to  prevent  the  wars  and 
massacres  of  the  16th  century;  but  a  glance  at  the  map 
will   show  that    Catholicism   triumphed  in   the   countries 

1  Heroine  of  Bandello's  love-poem. 


RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  453 

where  women  triumphed ;  fog  and  beer  and  men  turned 
Protestant. 

Further,  these  ideas,  crushed  as  people  fancied  them, 
reappeared  by  degrees  everywhere,  as  from  the  effect  of  a 
resistless  germination.  From  them  sprang  the  18th  centur}^ 
with  them  our  own  age  also,  for  all  its  matter-of-fact  bent, 
is  still  entirely  impregnated. 

And  Sadoleto  the  friend  of  Melanchthon,  the  liberal- 
minded  Contarini,  the  amiable  Reginald  Pole  so  much 
influenced  by  Vittoria  Colonna,  Flaminio,1  Vergerio,  would 
all  smile  at  certain  reconciliatory  schemes  of  to-day. 

1  [One  of  the  best  modern  Latin  poets  (1498-1550).     He  was  nominated 
by  the  pope  as  secretary  to  the  Council  of  Trent.] 


CHAPTER  VI 

EELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  (Continued) 

"  I  would  a  thousand  times  rather  believe  in  and  pursue  an 
ideal,  even  though  too  high,  than  miss  or  betray  it,"  said 
Montalembert.  Many  persons  in  the  16th  century  were  of 
a  different  opinion.  They  deemed  aesthetic  religion  too 
frivolous  or  too  worldly  a  thing,  above  all,  too  chimerical. 
The  adversaries  of  the  religion  of  beauty  split  up  into  two 
categories :  some  opposed  it  from  reasoned  conviction, 
others  from  social  jealousy  and  incompatibility  of  temper. 

The  first,  of  whom  Alberto  Pio1  and  Bude',2  eminent  and 
estimable  men,  may  serve  as  specimens,  scouted  the  very 
idea  of  any  connection  between  philosophy  and  religion, 
between  aesthetics  and  morals ;  in  their  opinion  religion  did 
not  tend  to  satisfy  the  reason,  nor  beauty  to  purify  the  con- 
duct. The  suggested  reconciliation  was  to  them  an  ill- 
disguised  reversion   to   paganism,  and   in   practice  led    to 

1"Who  then  has  supported  these  men?"  cries  Alberto  Pio:  "the 
dignitaries  of  the  church,  and  the  highest  of  them  !  They  have  main- 
tained at  their  voluptuous  court  these  men  with  their  half  pagan  leanings, 
who  pour  contempt  on  all  that  is  dear  to  the  people,  and  Btrive  only  to 
overturn  existing  things." 

[Pio  was  prince  da  Carpi,  and  a  nephew  of  Pico  della  Mirandola.] 
s  "  We,"  he  says,  "  nourished  and  moulded  by  Christianity,  no  longer 
approach  the  thought  of  divine  and  eternal  things  except  with  a  heart  fnll 
of  vanity,  a  mind  deadened  and  filled  with  the  love  of  material  things.  To 
the  instruction  of  Scripture,  to  the  responses  and  prophecies  of  the  Son  of 
God,  it  is  necessary  to  find  (I  am  ashamed  to  say  it)  an  academic  counter- 
part. We  have  gone  back  to  the  old  state  of  polytheism  or  atheism,  to  the 
maxims  of  antiquity.  ...  In  this  paradise  of  study  it  is  necessary  for 
every  lover  of  letters  that  his  philosophic  mind,  leaving  behind  the  pastures 
of  philology  (very  pleasant,  but  in  themselves  futile  and  of  no  account  for 
what  concerns  the  present  object),  should  strive  to  till  itself  with  the  nutri- 
ment of  sacred  philosophy,  the  feast  of  heavenly  wisdom  descended  among 
mortals." 

454 


RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  455 

scandals  like  the  representation  of  Machiavelli's Mandragora1 
at  the  Vatican. 

As  we  have  seen,  persons  of  this  same  opinion  had  already 
demonstrated  the  irrationality  and  inadequacy  of  reasoning; 
they  had  thereby  relieved  the  world  of  a  serious  embarrass- 
ment ;  sensibility  was  henceforth  to  be  the  sole  guide  of 
life.  But  now  we  find  others  wishing  to  destroy  this 
sensibility  also,  and  to  strip  us  of  everything.  At  the  idea 
that  love  is  born  of  beauty  such  people  veil  their  faces,  and 
beg  us  to  take  away  this  thing  they  cannot  bear  to  look 
upon,  that  is  neither  moral  nor  religious ! 

Assuredly  it  is  impossible  to  commend  everything  in  the 
Roman  movement.  Far  from  it !  There  is  only  too  large  a 
scope  for  criticism.  Aestheticism  was  carried  too  far  :  it  was, 
for  example,  a  singularly  wild  notion  to  consider  the  building 
of  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  a  social  necessity  of  the  first  importance, 
and  to  sacrifice  a  part  of  the  Catholic  world  to  the  desire  of 
completing  the  Vatican.  Antiquity,  to  be  sure,  evoked  a 
quite  exclusive  enthusiasm,  and  it  was  singular  to  see  the 
headquarters  of  Christianity  going  crazy  about  Pomponius 
Laetus,  calling  him  "  the  glory  of  the  age,"  *  Caesar,"  because 
he  was  unearthing  pagan  catacombs.  Not  that  mythology, 
as  then  cultivated,  aimed  at  bringing  back  a  real,  lively 
faith  in  the  Olympian  deities !  Isis,  Apollo,  Venus,  on  the 
walls  of  the  Vatican  or  the  churches,  stood  only  for  symbols 
and  types  of  philosophy :  Jean  Bouchet  very  happily  styled 
them  "the  aristocracy  of  the  world."  ^en  thought,  with 
Plato,  that  the  beauty  of  things  can  only  be  gauged  by  com- 
paring them  with  an  eternal  type ;  as  Margaret  of  France 
said:  "The  Beautiful  is  seen  in  all  forms  of  beauty." 
Further,  morality,  without  divorcing  itself  officially  from 
Christianity,  sometimes  was  pretty  completely  disjoined 
from  it ;  to  many  people  virtue  consisted  in  wearing  a  good 
coat  and  keeping  up  a  good  style.  Montaigne,  Aretino,  and 
Benvenuto  Cellini,  for  example,  passed  for  virtuous  men. 

To  protest  against  this  paganism  was  a  right  and  proper 
thing.  But  was  it  necessary  to  forbid  Christianity  to  secure 
a  rational  appreciation,  and  even  to  win  our  love  by  working 
upon  our  emotions  ?  An  ineradicable  instinct  prompted  the 
Latin  races  to  believe  through  love;   "Italy  will  be  un- 

1  [A  brief  criticism  of  this  excellent  comedy  is  given  in  Macaulay's  essay 
on  Machiavelli.] 


456      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

christianised,  not  Calvinised,"  as  Azeglio  admirably  said. 
To  invest  worship  with  mundane  pomp  and  circumstance  is 
as  profoundly  human  an  idea  as  it  is  to  keep  the  clock  at  a 
railway  station  a  few  minutes  behind  time. 

The  Middle  Ages,  however,  kept  strict  time  :  materialistic 
as  they  were,  they  erected  cathedrals,  the  baser  instincts 
avenging  themselves  by  affixing  to  the  cornices,  or  even  to 
the  porches,  in  full  view,  ornamental  details  cynically 
human.  The  Renaissance,  for  all  its  mysticism,  was  not 
partial  to  the  dim  religious  light,  or  the  mysteries  shadowed 
in  lofty  arches  far  out  of  eyeshot ;  it  loved  clearness,  day- 
light, illumination.  It  built  only  chateaux,  even  to  the 
glory  of  God.  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  is  a  chateau ;  the  eye 
detects  nothing  abnormal  in  it ;  and  there  man  feels  himself 
at  home. 

It  was  thus  with  the  religion  of  prelates  and  women.  It 
was  lofty,  sometimes  loftier  than  Gothic  arches,  but  so 
broad,  so  clear,  so  full  of  unity,  of  so  human  a  hospitality 
that  no  one  felt  he  had  to  do  with  the  unknown,  the 
unfathomable.  It  was  a  reflection  of  life  itself,  but  with 
added  brilliance  and  decoration  ;  it  aimed  at  attracting  man, 
when  he  had  performed  his  material  functions  in  eating, 
drinking,  loving  his  wife,  to  a  banquet  of  spiritual  fare 
and  spiritual  love.  We  look  to  women  to  quicken  our 
perception.     In  spiritual  concerns  the  parts  are  reversed. 

Now,  men  spent  their  lives  in  an  atmosphere  of  materi- 
alism and  unbridled  sensuality.  Melin  de  Saint-Gelais 
declared  nudities  "  heavenly  objects,  worthy  of  altars." 1 
Coyness  was  unknown.  "Happy  the  people  who  have 
only  God  to  deal  with,"  cries  a  young  lady :  "  with  men  it 
is  enough  to  save  appearances."2  In  the  view  of  many, 
morality  found  only  an  insufficient  sanction  in  religion  ;  the 
third  Margaret  of  France  wrote,  with  a  modesty  unhappily  too 
well  justified  :  "  Some  consider  that  God  holds  the  great  in 
his  special  protection."  And  on  the  other  hand,  the  laws  of 
society  did  not  always  oppose  a  very  solid  barrier :  it  was 
easy  to  a  noble  lady  to  override  them.     Rene'e  of  France 

1  La  foy  sans  amour  est  morte  et  endormye, 

Aussi  l'amour  sans  effect  vient  a  rien. 
[A  loveless  faith  is  slumberous  and  dead, 

And  love  inactive  naught  accomplishes.] 

8  Heptameron,  Tale  42. 


RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  457 

took  a  manifest  pleasure  in  running  atilt  against  popular 
conventions ;  Marot  had  only  to  set  the  mob  against  him  as 
"  a  lascivious  pagan,"  to  merit  her  indulgence.  Apparently 
she  was  even  tempted  to  believe  a  daughter  of  France 
so  superior  to  humanity  at  large  that  she  could  have  only 
lovers. 

However,  it  was  sincerely  believed  that,  for  people  of 
refinement  and  distinction,  good  style  and  good  taste 
rendered  many  artistic  things  inoffensive.  So  (to  select  one 
example  among  a  thousand)  no  one  was  shocked  when  the 
Abbe'  de  Maupas  gave  his  approval  to  some  neat  verses  in 
which  Gilles  d'Aurigny  boasted  his  conquest  of  a  "sweet 
pale  Margaret."  The  gentle  spotless  Vergerio  very  gaily 
accepted  the  title  of  "  bishop  of  Aretino."  Margaret  compli- 
ments her  brother  on  retaining  his  faith  through  all  his  sin. 
Does  she  praise  the  sin  ?  Not  at  all :  but  she  praises  the 
king  for  what  is  praiseworthy,  the  remaining  a  Christian. 
Vergerio  would  have  shrunk  with  horror  from  certain  of 
Aretino's  books,  but  he  considered  the  man  as  a  force,  of  as 
much  importance  as  any  diocese,  while  many  of  the  episcopal 
boroughs  contained  as  many  vices  with  less  wit.  And  he 
tries  to  coax  some  good  thing  out  of  this  diocese.  On  the 
same  principle  Margaret  set  Vauzelles  to  translate  some  of 
Aretino's  devotional  works.  Indulgence  thus  shown  in 
practice  had  no  modifying  effect  on  principles,  and  besides, 
men  were  particularly  careful  not  to  extend  it  to  the 
masses.  Among  them,  as  everybody  knows,  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  sentiment,  but  only  sensations,  and  with 
them,  consequently,  the  fetters  of  a  material  morality  were 
still  found  serviceable.  The  same  Caterina  Cibo  who  highly 
approved  Firenzuola's  book  on  love,  severely  reproached  the 
bishop  of  Camerino  for  his  slackness  in  reforming  the  morals 
of  his  clergy,  and  succeeded  in  obtaining  from  the  pope  a 
rigorous  brief  on  the  subject. 

In  society  it  happened  that  pagan  sensation  and  Christian 
sentiment  all  but  touched ;  it  seemed  prudent,  advantageous, 
and  politic  not  to  accentuate  the  difference  between  them. 
Many  people,  like  true  gourmets,  let  themselves  swing 
gently  between  mysticism  and  materialism ;  perhaps  it  was 
just  as  well  not  to  compel  them  to  decide  one  way  or  the 
other.  It  has  been  well  said  that  "faith  has  this  peculi- 
arity, that  when  it  has  vanished,  it  influences  still :  grace 


458      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

survives  by  force  of  habit  from  a  once  living  sentiment" l 
The  logical  Germans  proceeded  to  deduce  from  this  spiritual 
condition  the  system  of  "  faith  without  works."  But  folk 
remained  satisfied  with  "  confidence  without  works."  It  was 
in  these  practical  considerations  that  an  answer  was  found 
to  Bude"s  objections. 

However,  Bude*  was  a  friend,  and  sought  only  to  point  out 
abuses.  The  real  and  invincible  adversaries  of  the  religion 
of  beauty,  those  who  hoped  to  destroy  it,  came  from  below. 
They  were  such  as  society  scouted — the  vulgar,  the  super- 
stitious, the  material-minded,  the  street  as  against  the  salon  : 
in  short,  the  men.  When  Vergerio  went  to  Germany  to 
discourse  of  love,  he  was  answered  in  a  strain  that  dis- 
concerted him  :  the  Germans  talked  politics  to  him.  "  I  am 
tortured,"  he  cries,  "  to  see  the  cause  of  Jesus  Christ  treated 
with  so  much  indignity  ;  it  appears  to  me  that  to-day 
this  is  not  the  real  explanation  of  the  immense  trouble 
taken  with  so  many  people :  it  is  assuredly  only  a  pretext. 
The  main  thing  considered  under  the  cloak  of  zeal  for 
Christ  is,  I  believe,  nothing  but  the  private  interests  of 
a  few  individuals." 

The  clergy  did  not  follow  the  religious  lead  of  the 
prelates.  The  whole  of  the  middle  or  lower  orders  among 
them,  the  country  parsons,  the  monks,  made  common  cause, 
some  in  a  materialist  direction,2  others  as  visionaries,  against 
the  philosophic  group,  the  higher  prelacy,  and  the  priesthood 
of  women. 

The  monk  was  a  man  of  different  stamp.  Margaret 
petting  Rabelais  resembles,  if  we  may  be  allowed  the 
expression,  a  hen  mothering  a  duck.     Look  at  the  man  of 

1  Renan. 

a  The  art  of  evoking  the  spirits  which  hover  about  us,  and  of  entering  by 
their  aid  into  relations  with  the  absent  or  the  dead — an  art  largely  practised 
in  France  and  Germany — was  quite  as  pagan  as  the  Italian  mythology. 
Trithemius,  the  famous  abbot  of  Spanheim,  laid  down  dogmatic  rules  for  it. 
Many  spirits  came  without  being  summoned.  There  were  amiable  spirits 
among  them,  simple  domestic  goblins  who  made  themselves  useful.  At  the 
moment  of  death  Agrippa  was  thus  attended.  There  were  also  troublesome 
fiends,  like  those  tricksy  sprites  who  visited  women  in  the  darkness  of  the 
night.  Jean  Mansel  relates  the  story  of  an  unhappy  woman  tormented 
every  night  by  a  sort  of  unconscionable  husband,  who  was  no  other  than  a 
jovial  demon.  At  last,  worn  out,  she  consults  a  hermit,  who  directs  her 
to  raise  her  arms  at  the  critical  moment  towards  a  sacred  picture  ;  with  the 
result  that  the  demon  takes  flight,  not  without  cursing  the  hermit. 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  459 

fustian,  whom  one  pious  author  liked  to  call  "God's 
nightingale,"  there  in  his  pulpit,  fist  on  hip,  vulgar, 
impassioned,  ranting,  preaching  terrible  doctrines  with 
sonorous  voice.  The  antagonism  "between  him  and  the 
platonist  women  is  easily  realised.  He  did  not  bother 
his  head  about  beauty  or  love;  instead  of  an  amiable 
liberality  which  would  suit  a  sceptical  audience,  it  seemed 
as  though  with  his  wild  declamations  he  had  no  other  aim 
than  to  quench  the  embers  still  smouldering.  It  was 
more  than  a  treason,  it  was  a  folly.  He  did  not  mince 
matters  ;  he  reviled  the  bishops  and  great  ones  of  the 
earth ;  talk  to  him  of  love,  he  replied  with  retribution,  toil, 
eternal  torments,  the  glories  of  poverty,  the  agonies  of  the 
animal  man.  Savonarola  himself,  so  warm  and  passionate, 
so  much  loved  and  worthy  of  love,  brandished  with  scriptural 
fervour  the  great  popular  weapons,  the  prophecies  and  the 
wrath  to  come.  In  France,  Oliver  Maillard,  Me'not, 
Rabelais  himself  (though  misguided)  possessed  a  breezy 
eloquence,  rugged,  turbid,  picturesque,  censorious,  verbose, 
nowhit  metaphysical,  the  opposite  of  the  official  Cicer- 
onianism : 

II  presche  en  th6ologien  ; 

Mais  pour  boire  de  belle  eau  claire, 

Faites-la  boire  a  vostre  chien, 

Frere  Lubin  ne  le  peult  faire. * 

Maillard  went  so  far  as  to  sing  songs   of  his  own   in 

the   pulpit!      Others   indulged   in  wearisome   or   tasteless 

jests,  in  the  most  aristocratic  of  churches,2  and  before  a 

queen. 

1  [Theology  he  will  expound  ; 
But  as  for  drinking  water  pure, 
You'd  better  give  it  to  your  hound, 
For  brother  Lubin  can't — be  sure.] 

'Oliver  Maillard  declaims  at  St.  Jean  de  Greve,  Paris:  "O  women, 
O  flaunting  wenches,  bethink  ye  well.  Why  fill  your  time  with  amuse- 
ments and  vanities  ?  You  will  have  to  answer,  not  for  the  conceptions  of 
Aristotle,  nor  the  learning  of  idealists  or  realists,  of  legists  or  physicians, 
but  for  your  good  or  evil  life  ...  Lift  up  your  hearts,  ladies  ;  are  you  good 
theologians  ?  That  is  what  he  finds  to  say  to  women  who  patronise  and 
cultivate  learning,  to  platonists  penetrated  with  the  idea  of  the  indulgent 
mercy  of  God,  and  convinced  of  the  great  number  of  the  Elect.  (Sermones 
de  adventu).  A  preacher  is  describing  the  Virgin  at  the  moment  of  the 
Annunciation :  ' '  What  was  she  doing,  ladies  ?  Think  you  she  was 
occupied  in  painting  and  powdering  her  face  ?  No,  at  the  foot  of  the 
Cross  she  was  reading  the  Hours  of  Our  Lady  "  ! 


460      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Ignorant  of  the  world  and  its  refinements,  the  monks  and 
parsons  applied  to  distinguished  consciences  the  casuistry  of 
the  suburbs :  their  morality  smacked  of  the  natural  man. 
It  proscribed  refined  joys:  a  man  should  be  "an  ox  or  an 
ass,"  as  Savonarola  said.  Not  that  the  monks  were  ill- 
natured  :  they  were  hospitable ;  they  would  console  an 
unhappj7  wife;  they  would  assist  a  widow  to  find  a  gem 
of  a  son-in-law.  But  there  their  understanding  of  the 
feminine  nature  stopped.  For  the  rest  they  saw  in  women 
only  Satanic  lures,  false  chignons,  perfumes,  all  the  fripperies 
of  which  Savonarola  had  made  so  magnificent  a  holocaust 
in  the  great  square  of  Florence  !  Amiability  was  quite 
beyond  them.  Fra  Inigo,  in  one  of  the  streets  of  Toledo, 
happened  to  be  walking  behind  some  ladies  whose  trains 
were  raising  clouds  of  dust.  They  good-naturedly  stopped 
to  let  him  pass.  Fancying  he  was  the  very  pink  of 
courtesy  he  said  :  "  I  kiss  your  hands,  ladies ;  proceed,  I  beg 
you  :  the  dust  raised  by  the  sheep  doesn't  annoy  the  wolf." 
In  the  pulpit  it  was  the  same;  if  they  spoke  of  social 
necessities,  it  was  like  the  peasants  they  were;  they  preached 
poverty  and  chastity  without  qualification ;  they  had  no  eye 
for  fine  shades,  but  bedaubed  the  most  delicate  facades  with 
their  garish  colours.  "  Are  you  in  fit  state  to  die  ?  You 
women  who  display  your  beautiful  bosoms,  your  necks, 
your  throats,  would  you  wish  to  die  in  your  present 
condition  ?  And  you  priests,  would  you  like  to  die  with 
your  conscience  burdened  with  the  masses  you  have  said  ? 
Not  four  out  of  a  thousand,  I  believe,  would  be  found 
ready.  If  the  last  trump  here  assailed  our  ears,  we  should 
then  see  who  would  respond  to  its  appeal ! "' 

The  monastic  spirit  was  indestructible;  Spagnuoli2  and 
Du  Four  carried  it  into  the  courts.  Adrian  VI.,  coming 
between  two  Medicean  popes,  cherished  this  spirit  at  the 

1  Maillard. 

8  "Nee  formae  contents  suae,  splendore  decorem 
Auget  mille  modis  mulier  ;  f rontem  ligat  auro, 
Purpurat  arte  genas  et  collocat  arte  capillos, 
Arte  regit  gressus,  et  lumina  temperat  arte. 
Currit  ut  in  latebras  ludens  perducat  amantem."    [Egloga,  4.) 
[Not  content  with  her  natural  beauty,  woman  enhances  the  brilliance  of 
her  charms  in  a  thousand  ways.     She  binds  her  brow  with  gold,  artfully 
colours  her  cheeks  and  knots  her  hair  and  rules  her  gait  and  manages  her 
eyes.     She  runs  that  sportive  she  may  lure  her  lover  into  her  secret  nook.] 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  461 

Vatican.1  During  three  reigns  Francis  de  Paul  remained 
faithful  to  it  at  the  court  of  France.  Once  before,  as  he 
passed  through  Rome,  St.  Francis  had  ventured  to  upbraid 
a  cardinal  lolling  in  a  sumptuous  equipage,  and  the  prelate, 
bending  forward  over  the  door,  had  replied  with  a  fine  and 
courtly  smile   that  it  was  very  necessary  to   inspire  the 

1  Dueil,  jalousie, 

Puis  frenesie, 

Puis  souspessons, 

Melancolie, 

Tours  de  follie, 

Regretz,  tensons, 

Pleurs  et  chansons, 

Sont  les  facons 

D'amoureuse  chevalerie. 
Mieulx  vauldroit  servir  les  massong 
Que  d'avoir  au  cceur  telz  glassons. 

[Jealous  care, 

Rage,  despair, 

Then  suspicions, 

Melancholy, 

Freaks  of  folly, 

Regrets,  quarrels, 

Tears  and  carols, 

These  conditions 
Do  our  love-lorn  knighthood  bear. 
Better  to  fill  a  hodman's  part 
Than  have  such  icicles  chilling  the  heart.  ] 

That  is  how  the  good  prior  of  Lire,  Guillaume  Alexis,  expresses  himself  as 
he  rides  with  a  nobleman  along  the  road  from  Rome  to  Verneuil.  [Le  grant 
Blason  desfaulces  amours.)  He  continues  in  the  same  vigorous  and  cutting 
style.  What,  replies  his  companion,  disagreeably  surprised,  you  ask  them 
only  to  work 

Et  de  nul  plaisir  n'avez  cure  ! 

Tous  pageaulx 

Sont-ils  egaulx? ... 

...  Quant  on  est  jeune, 

Force  est  qu'on  tienne 
Le  train  des  autres  jouvenceaulx. 

[And  never  to  have  a  pleasure  in  life  ! 
Varlets  in  hall, 
Are  they  equal  all  ? 
When  one  is  young 
One  needs  must  along 
With  other  younkers  rolling  the  ball.] 

Nature  speaks  ;  Gawain,  Arthur,  Lancelot 

Qui  ne  craignoyent  ne  froit  ne  chault 
...  Toujours  estoyent  amoureux. 
Nous  aymerons 
Et  chanterons 
En  noz  jouvences : 


462      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

children  of  that  generation  with  respect.  How  much  St. 
Francis  was  idolised  by  the  ladies  it  is  beyond  us  to  tell : 
in  all  circumstances  of  gravity  they  claimed  his  intercession, 
and  yet  he  did  not  flatter  them.  He  would  never  give 
audience  to  them.  Women  and  wealth,  said  he,  are  the 
two  scourges  of  the  Church — and  especially  devout  women  : 
them  he  called  "  vipers." 

How  the  world  flung  back  these  invectives !  Ladies  and 
prelates  vied  with  one  another  in  mocking  at  the  lower 
monastic  orders — those  shaven  scurvy  bald-pates  who  stood 
in  the  way  of  all  spiritual  regeneration  ;  ill-bred,  material- 
minded  fellows,  uneducated,coarse,fat,full-blooded,  brimming 
over  with  a  hot,  carnal  vitality,  gay  to  the  core  and  therefore 
prompt  to  sin,  much  "  more  attentive  to  the  life  active  than 
to  the  life  contemplative  " — those  easy-going  vagabonds  who, 
awaiting  eternity,  "  do  not  weary  their  minds  overmuch  by 
perusal  of  a  heap  of  books,"  for  fear  lest  the  lore  they  might 
imbibe  from  them  should  puff  them  out  with  pride,  like 
Lucifer,  and  "  make  them  decline  from  monastic  learning." 
The  pallid  platonists,  "crushed  under  their  trappings," 
called  them  fanatics,  hypocrites,  misers,  gluttons,  and  above 
all  filthy  and  disgusting  wretches.  It  was  a  singular  idea 
the  Prince  da  Carpi  had — to  be  buried  in  a  monk's  fustian 
frock,  and  thus  "  turn  monk  beyond  the  tomb."  That  was 
clean  contrary  to  the  mode ! 

Quant  vieulx  serous, 

Nous  penserons 

Des  consciences, 

Menues  offenses, 

Et  negligences. 
Quelque  jour  recompenseront 
Force  pardons,  prou  indulgences. 

[Who  feared  nor  heat  nor  cold  a  whit, 

Were  ever  in  love. 

Blithe  and  gay 

With  love  and  lay 

Youth  we  will  speed  : 

When  old  and  gray 

'Twill  be  time  to  pray, 

Conscience  to  heed, 

Follies  to  shun, 

To  rue  good  undone. 
And  some  day  indulgences,  pardons  galore, 
Will  help  pay  the  piper  and  settle  the  score.] 

The  monk  replies  with  a  long  discourse,  flagellating  the  vices  of  women 
and  resulting  disasters. 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  463 

Margaret  lampooned  the  monks.  Alexander  VI.  called 
them  tyrants,  and  declared  he  would  much  rather  offend  the 
greatest  of  kings  than  the  least  of  these  mendicants.  At  a 
carnival  at  Rome,  Bibbiena,  galloping  along  under  his  mask, 
caught  sight  of  a  monk,  and  swooped  down  on  him  like  a 
hawk  upon  its  prey.  "  I  know  you,"  he  cries  tragically  : 
"  the  provost  is  after  you  to  arrest  you,  but  I  will  save  you ; 
I  will  carry  you  off  to  the  chancellor's  " ;  and  thereupon  he 
grabs  the  unlucky  monk,  hoists  him  on  to  the  crupper  all 
shivering  and  shaking,  and  off  they  go  amid  the  hoots  and 
yells  and  gibes  of  the  mob,  under  a  shower  of  eggs !  Soon 
Bibbiena  was  yolk  of  egg  from  head  to  heel, — and  was 
privately  accusing  the  people  of  uncommonly  bad  marks- 
manship. At  last,  when  the  city  had  had  its  fill  of  laughter, 
he  deigned  to  yield  to  the  supplications  of  his  victim  and 
set  him  down.  Then  the  other  broke  a  few  more  eggs 
over  him,  flung  off  his  frock,  and  with  a  low  bow  said,  "  I 
am  your  groom."     Bibbiena  galloped  on. 

We  need  not,  of  course,  take  literally  the  jests  of  that 
period  against  the  monks.  There  were  good  and  bad 
monks ;  the  good  were  those  least  in  evidence.  But  Guy 
Juvenal,  who  was  an  active  and  honest  worker  for  monastic 
reform,  winds  up  his  enquiry1  with  a  phrase  as  old  as  St. 
Augustine:  "You  find  in  the  convents  the  best  and  the 
worst." 

However,  the  adversaries  of  the  monks  do  them  justice 
themselves,  unintentionally.  The  company  in  the  Hep- 
tameron,  for  instance,  are  much  amused  at  the  idea  that 
some  monks  may  possibly  have  overheard  their  ribald  talk. 
One  of  the  Urbino  coterie  traces  a  portrait  of  the  monks 
from  the  outside  which  leaves  us  musing.  Gross  and 
plump,  he  says,  they  were  hypocrites :  little  mortification  of 
the  flesh  there  !  Emaciated  and  unkempt,  they  were  false 
hounds  who  distinguished  between  sins  secret  and  sins 
open.  Elegant,  well-trimmed,  scented — these  were  every- 
thing that  was  vilest  and  most  antagonistic  to  platonism ! 
But  what  then  ought  their  style  to  have  been  ? 

Trithemius,  however,  defined  the  monastic  life  in  a  highly 
platonist  phrase :  "  To  love  is  to  know."  How  came,  then, 
the  idea  that  monks  could  not  actively  mingle  in  the  life  of 
the  world,  since  St.  Ignatius  proved  the  contrary  when  he 

1  Reformationis  monasticce  vindiciae,  1503. 


464      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

founded  an  order  in  harmony  with  the  new  spirit  ?  The 
convents  of  old  were  peopled  with  distinguished  intellects ; 
Luther,  Calvin,  Erasmus,  Jean  Thenaud,  Andre'  Thevet,1  and 
a  thousand  others  sprang  from  these  decried  lower  clergy. 
How  can  we  believe  that  the  monks  were  by  their  tenets  at 
odds  with  aestheticism,  when  the  Italian  Dominicans 
monopolised  the  charming  art  of  mosaic  in  wood  and  almost 
monopolised  also  that  of  painting  on  glass — when  St.  Mark's 
at  Florence,  impregnated  with  the  fragrant  inspirations  of 
the  Fra  Angel icos  and  the  Fra  Bartolomeos,  stands  forth  to 
this  day,  in  the  profound  simplicity  of  neglect,  one  of  the 
most  delightful  refuges  of  human  thought  ? 

Certain  of  the  more  cultured  orders  had  a  bent  for 
learning.  And  these  were  expelled;  the  Jacobins  were 
harried  away  by  the  cardinal  of  Amboise  because  they  lived 
outside  their  convent  walls  in  order  to  dance  attendance  at 
court,  and  neglected  the  offices  of  the  church.  There  was  a 
striking  repetition  of  this  quarrel  in  the  17th  century, 
between  Dom  Mabillon,  who  advocated  a  learned  monkhood, 
and  the  fiery  abbe'  of  Ranee',  who  wished  to  maintain  the 
monasteries  in  the  simple  practice  of  piety ;  and  in  this 
contest  also  a  woman  (the  duchess  of  Guise)  took  part. 

Yet  many  of  the  monks,  from  a  godly  desire  for  success, 
strove  earnestly  to  suit  themselves  to  the  fashion ;  they 
freely  cited  the  Olympian  deities  and  quoted  Ovid  and 
Virgil ;  in  spite  of  the  counsels  of  Savonarola,  they  exerted 
themselves  to  please,  even  though  at  the  expense  of  "  the 
divine."  One  preacher  draws  an  ingenious  parallel  between 
the  Virgin  and  Isis  Others  discourse  on  beauty  or 
coquetry,  its  benefits  and  perils.  Some  maintain  that  the 
Virgin  was  not  pretty,  because  she  was  lowly  and  not  in 
society ;  others,  on  the  contrary,  nourished  on  the  Song  of 
Songs  and  other  aesthetic  authorities,  depict  her  as  "  clothed 
with  the  sun  "  according  to  the  phrase  in  the  Apocalypse — 
dark-skinned  perhaps,  being  a  Jewess,  but  a  woman  to  be 
admired  nevertheless ! 

But  the  monks,  do  what  they  might,  scatter  a  thousand 
flowers  of  mythology  and  rhetoric  as  they  pleased,  never 
acquired  the  lightness  of  touch  the  least  of  the  sonneteers 
possessed. 

1  [Thenaud  and  Thevet  were  both  Franciscans  who  travelled  in  the  East 
and  published  accounts  of  their  adventures.] 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  465 

Rabelais  opens  with  a  polemic  on  the  merit  of  women,  a 
stale  subject,  but  impossible  to  avoid.  He  loves  the  world 
and  mocks  at  the  "  molish  monk  " ;  he  extols,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  monk  "young,  gallant,  dexterous,  bold,  adven- 
turous, resolute,  tall,  lean,  voluminous  in  chaps,  well-favoured 
in  nose,  who  smartly  patters  his  prayers  and  polishes  off  his 
masses  .  .  .  moreover,  a  clerk  to  the  finger-tips  in  point  of  the 
breviary."  He  admits  both  sexes  to  his  abbey  of  Thelema, 
on  proof  of  perfect  beauty.  It  is  laved  and  perfumed,  this 
modern  abbey — full  of  gold  and  jewels,  of  beauteous  gar- 
ments, of  music,  of  things  sumptuous  and  comfortable,  of 
books :  nothing  is  wanting  there :  it  has  nine  thousand 
three  hundred  and  thirty-two  chapels,  and  a  single  swimming 
bath  under  the  watchful  eye  of  a  statue  of  the  Three  Graces. 
No  one  there  is  irked  by  theology ! 

And  yet  Rabelais  was  absolutely  at  sea  in  regard  to  the 
platonist  spirit,  to  these  mystic  abstractions :  "  To  have  a 
woman  is  to  have  her  for  the  use  wherefor  Nature  created 
her  .  .  .  for  the  delectation  of  man."  If  anyone  speaks  to 
him  of  the  "devotion  of  love"  he  laughs  and  sets  himselt 
down  at  the  table :  "  Drink,"  cries  the  Sibyl  in  his  ear, 
"  drink ! "  Drunkenness — that  is  mysticism  enough  for 
him !  He  leaves  the  convent  to  become  a  physician.  He 
commends  none  but  the  natural  sciences,  and  the  only  one 
he  cannot  away  with  is  the  only  one  that  women  accept — 
prophetic  astrology.     He  was  bound  to  end  as  a  parson  ! 

Even  in  Italy,  the  monk  always  smacked  of  his  convent. 
Folengo1  spent  his  life  in  going  in  and  out  of  it.  His  works- 
also  are  nothing  but  one  everlasting  buffoonery.  In  his 
Moscheid,  he  appears  to  depict  the  conspiracy  of  monks 
against  fine  ladies — an  epic  complot  of  all  creeping  things — 
ants,  bugs,  spiders — against  the  winged  race  of  bees  and 
butterflies.  The  royal  head  of  the  chancellery,  Spingard„ 
sets  off  on  a  lean-ribbed  mare,  bearing  splendid  letters 
under  the  great  seal  of  the  Senate  (an  image  of  Liberty  and 
Justice),  in  order  to  entice  men  into  a  spider's  web. 

But  the  Italian  monks  accepted  their  rout ;  they  derided 
the  antiquated  "subtleties  of  St.  Thomas,"  as  well  as  visions 

1  [He  eloped  with  a  woman,  lived  a  Bohemian  life  for  ten  years,  and  then 
returned  to  the  hair-shirt  and  piety,  wanderiug  from  convent  to  convent. 
He  was  one  of  the  earliest  and  most  successful  writers  of  macaronic  verso 
(Oj)iia  Mcrlini  Cocaii  macaronicorum).] 

2  0 


466      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

of  God  without  intermediaries,  and  hatred  of  indulg- 
ences. Their  solace  was  a  splendid  ignorance,  Neapolitan, 
epicurean. 

In  Germany,  on  the  contrary,  they  triumphed.  Despite 
the  recommendations  of  Leo  X.  and  the  passionate  objurga- 
tions of  Erasmus,  the  Germans  refused  to  admire  the  works 
of  the  hour,  the  Epistles  of  Eoban,1  for  instance,  in  which 
the  holy  women  of  the  New  Testament  are  represented  as 
writing  in  the  style  of  Ovid.  They  waged  implacable  war 
against  aestheticism  and  dilettantism,  and  the  bitterness  of 
the  struggle  was  only  accentuated  every  time  they  came  in 
contact  with  Rome.  Burckhardt,  writing  his  memoirs  day 
by  day  about  a  splendid  epoch,  is  incessantly  bemoaning  its 
corruption:  does  he  perceive  the  existence  of  a  spiritual 
movement  at  Rome  ?  He  sees  nothing  of  liberty  but  the 
scandals ;  he  does  his  duty  like  a  painstaking  but  muddle- 
headed  corporal.  Erasmus  himself  is  blind  to  all  but  the 
humanities,  while  Luther  finds  only  horrors.  They  spoke 
with  different  tongues.  When  Hoogstratten,  a  German 
monk,  impeached  Reuchlin,  who  had  ventured  to  defend 
certain  Jewish  books  on  scientific  grounds,  Rome  was 
utterly  unable  to  make  out  the  bearings  of  this  trumpery 
dispute  :  she  procrastinated,  and  let  the  matter  drop. 

Ulrich  von  Hiitten  tried  to  Italianise  himself  at  the  little 
court  of  the  archbishop  of  Mayence,  which  claimed  to  be  a 
copy  of  Urbino,  but  all  they  did  there  was  to  play  billiards 
and  abuse  the  monks  behind  their  backs.  He  returned  to 
Rome  in  1516,  one  of  the  years  of  triumph ;  and  there, 
son  of  a  sturdy  and  poor  country  where  the  lord  ruled  and 
even  robbed  people  at  his  pleasure,  and  where  woman 
was  emphatically  the  weaker  vessel,  he,  the  old  and 
unknown  student,  found  himself  excluded  from  that  superb 
court,2  from  those  "false  gods"  as   he   called   them,  and 

1  [Noted  for  an  excellent  Latin  verse  translation  of  the  Iliad.  He  was  a 
German.] 

2Maltre  Berthold,  he  relates,  who  had  gone  to  Rome  to  seek  his  fortune, 
had  only  succeeded  after  two  mouths  in  finding  a  place  as  groom  to  an 
auditor  of  the  rota,  to  look  after  his  mule.  "  But,"  said  I  to  him,  "  that's 
not  the  sort  of  thing  for  me,  a  master  of  arts  of  Cologne ;  I  can't  do  things 
like  that."  "Very  well,  if  you  won't,  I  can't  help  it."  "I  think  I  shall 
return  to  my  own  country.  .  .  .  Am  I  to  currycomb  the  mule  and 
scrub  the  stable  ?  Sooth,  everything  may  go  to  the  devil,  for  me  ! " 
Again,  Conrad  Stryldriot  writes :  "  'Tis  the  devil  who  brought  me  here, 
and  I  can't  go  back ;  there  is  no  good  fellowship  here  as  in  Germany  ; 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  467 

relegated  to  the  society  of  a  German  financier  of  low  degree ; 
he  had  no  recommendation  but  his  birth ;  and  he  could 
barely  succeed  in  finishing  his  studies  in  law.  He  took  his 
revenge  in  abuse.  "I  have  human  feelings,"  he  wrote  to 
Luther. 

With  lofty  eloquence  and  burning  zeal  he  preached 
the  necessary  war.  The  apostles  of  love  had  called  war  a 
brigandage.  Hiitten  denounced  as  brigands  the  non- 
combatants — merchants,  advocates,  and  priests.  His  motto 
was :  a  beautiful  woman,  gold,  and  indolence.  In  1522  he 
took  up  arms,  and  with  a  magnificent  gesture  pointed  out 
the  splendid  churches  to  the  mob. 

Luther,  too,  protests  against  the  philosophic  spirit.  He 
checks  liberty  at  a  certain  point,  forbidding  the  mind  to 
emancipate  itself  further.  From  a  thinker  he  becomes  a 
man  of  action,  and  joins  hands  with  the  great  lords. 

There  was  an  explosion  of  anti-feminist  and  anti-liberal 
sentiments — war  to  the  knife.  It  took  place,  like  all  great 
moral  outbursts,  under  the  banner  of  religion,  because  religion 
possessed  organised  battalions,  a  force  ready  at  call,  and, 
above  all,  excellent  pretexts  with  which  to  veil  struggles 
entered  into  on  behalf  of  selfish  interests. 

"  Talk  of  household  concerns  is  women's  affair,"  said 
Luther :  "  they  are  mistresses  and  queens  there,  and  more 
than  a  match  for  Cicero  and  the  finest  orators.  .  .  .  But 
take  them  from  their  housewifery  and  they  are  good  for 
nothing.  .  .  .  Woman  is  born  to  manage  a  household  :  'tis 
her  lot,  her  law  of  nature  :  man  is  born  for  war  and  polity, 
to  administer  and  govern  states."  As  a  model  for  the 
sculptor  woman  delighted  Luther ;  but  that  was  all ;  he 
denied  her  physical  and  moral  vigour ;  the  less  her  moral 
strength,  the  more  he  congratulates  her.  Evidently  the 
intellectual  pretensions  of  feminism  constituted  in  his  eyes 
an  absurdity  and  a  peril.  Calvin  went  still  farther. 
Whatever  was  pleasing  to  women  he  proscribed,  even 
aesthetic  emotions  however  inoffensive,  however  religious 
in   character.     He  would   hardly   deign    to    believe    that 

people  aren't  sociable  ;  if  a  man  gets  drunk  once  a  day,  they  take  offence 
and  call  him  a  pig.  What  is  one  to  do  ?  The  courtesans  are  very  dear, 
and  not  at  all  pretty.  I  tell  you  in  all  truth,  in  Italy  the  women  are 
uncommonly  ill  made,  spite  of  all  their  fine  furbelows  of  silk  and  camlet. 
.  .  They  stoop,  ana  eat  garlic  and  are  swarthy-hued.  ...  What 
colour  they  have  is  paint."     (Epistolce  obacurorum  virorum.) 


468      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

women  are  really  good  hands  at  puddings !  Some  ladies,  in 
their  noble  devotion  to  his  cause,  had  found  a  common 
prison  in  the  Chatelet;  he  sent  them  somewhat  grim 
felicitations.  "If  men  are  frail  and  easily  shaken,  the 
frailty  of  your  sex  is  still  greater.  .  .  .  God  hath  chosen 
the  foolish  things  of  the  world  to  confound  the  wise,  and 
the  weak  things  of  the  world  to  confound  the  things  which 
are  mighty,  and  base  things  of  the  world,  and  things  which 
are  despised,  to  bring  to  nought  those  that  are  great  and  of 
high  worth." 

There  was  nothing  for  Luther  to  invent.  Everyone 
desired  a  reformation,  like  himself.  The  cardinal  of 
Amboise  and  the  traditional  school  wished  to  try  back  and 
restore  discipline ;  the  philosophic  women  and  the  Roman 
world  were  for  pushing  ahead,  and  saw  salvation  in  the 
rejuvenescence  of  faith  through  liberty.1  But  neither  party 
was  eager  for  a  schism,  above  all  the  Liberals  of  Rome,  who 
not  only  stood  for  unity,  which  was  their  breath  of  life,  but 
also  gladly  washed  their  hands  of  pure  theology. 

Luther  invented  nothing.  All  that  he  said,  and  even 
more,  had  been  said  at  Rome  for  fifty  years  before  him. 
He  caught  certain  floating  ideas,  and  fixed  those  which 
had  passed  into  current  morality.  This  was  to  attack 
dilettantism.  The  gentle  feminist  and  Latinist  prelates, 
with  their  tolerance,  their  openness  of  mind  and  intel- 
lectual freedom — Sadoleto,  the  friend  of  Melanchthon, 
Contarini,  Pole,  the  kindly  scholar  ruled  by  Vittoria 
Colonna,  Flaminio,  Vergerio — all  deplored  the  degradation  of 
their  handiwork:  they  felt  as  a  Raphaelite  painter  would  feel 
if  he  found  his  dreams  copied  in  a  trumpery  chromograph. 
Yet,  while  lamenting  this  use  made  of  liberty,  they  respected 
it ;  at  bottom  they  considered  Zwingle  and  Melanchthon  as 
two  of  themselves,  and  they  did  not  despair  of  achieving 
the  triumph  of  freedom  by  freedom  itself.  Such  was,  as  we 
know,  the  policy  of  Pole  at  Ratisbon,  and  of  Vergerio  at 
Worms;  but  despite  the  support  of  Vittoria  Colonna, 
Margaret  of  France,  and  a  whole  band  of  enthusiastic  and 
ardent  women,  they  did  not  succeed;  they  were  caught 
between  two  fires. 

Women  threw  themselves  into  the  fray  with  enthusiasm. 

We  might  fancy  ourselves  looking  at  the  Sabine  women 

1  "  Post  tenebras  ego  spero  lucem,"  wrote  Jean  Marot  in  1415. 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  469 

of  David's  famous  picture :  daughters  of  the  Roman  Church, 
very  devoted,  very  judicious  (at  least  in  their  own  opinion), 
and  yet  ready  in  the  name  of  freedom  to  defend  and  love 
their  adversaries. 

Vittoria  Colonna  always  believed  herself  as  orthodox  as 
the  Holy  See  itself,  and  more  clever,  even  when  in  the  heat 
of  the  battle  she  put  forth  opinions  somewhat  questionable. 

She  sang  the  barque  of  Peter  triumphing  over  all  the 
billows  of  the  world's  vileness  and  ill-will,  and  she  received 
the  papal  benediction.  But  yet,  in  the  great  religious 
struggle  of  the  16th  century,  she  could  never  realise  that 
genuine  difficulties  of  doctrine  were  involved;  she  saw 
nothing  but  a  medley  of  personal  intrigues,  rivalries, 
jealousies,  offended  susceptibilities,  good  intentions  bungled; 
excellent  judges  have  shared  her  impressions.  Entirely  new 
circumstances  had  to  arise,  the  fiercest  moment  of  the  battle 
had  to  come,  before  the  court  of  Rome  at  last  repudiated 
retrospectively  all  fellowship  with  Vittoria.  And  yet  events 
seemed  to  justify  the  thesis  of  love — a  thesis  neither  Pro- 
testant nor  strictly  Catholic. 

Attached  to  a  religion  of  intuition  and  sentiment,  the 
women  aimed  at  saving  the  guilty  by  the  love  of  the 
innocent ;  they  put  into  practice  a  doctrine  rather  divine 
than  religious  ;  their  scheme  was  that  of  Henri  IV.:  "Those 
who  unswervingly  follow  their  conscience  are  of  my  religion, 
and  I  am  of  the  religion  of  all  who  are  brave  and  good." 

Vittoria  Colonna  took  a  very  special  interest  in  a  cele- 
brated Capuchin,  the  ardent  and  eloquent  Ochino,  who  had 
formed  at  Naples  a  sort  of  liberal  triumvirate.  Somewhat 
intoxicated  with  his  popularity  and  the  warm  sympathies 
of  the  feminist  group,  Ochino  bitterly  attacked  Paul  III. 
about  certain  measures  of  reform  directed  against  the 
Capuchins.  The  marchioness  hastened  to  prevent  a  rupture; 
she  issued  a  great  liberal  manifesto  addressed  to  Contarini, 
and  at  the  same  time  urged  Ochino  to  come  to  Rome.  Paul 
smiled  at  the  manifesto,  and  sent  the  author  a  pilgrim's 
passport,  for  herself  and  a  Capuchin.  Ochino,  however, 
made  a  rancorous  reply.  Women  put  forth  indescribable 
efforts  to  bring  back  to  the  fold  this  sheep  who  was 
threatening  to  wander  away !  Thanks  to  the  feminine 
freemasonry,  Ochino,  though  openly  at  odds  with  the 
pope,  still  occupied  with  brilliance  the  principal  pulpits  of 


470      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Verona,  Venice,  Bologna  and  Mantna,  until  at  last  he  took 
to  flight.  Vittoria  never  lost  sight  of  him ;  at  Venice,  she 
got  secret  information  as  to  his  welfare  from  Berabo,  who 
had  just  been  raised  to  the  cardinalate.1  Later,  by  means 
of  anonymous  letters  in  which  she  told  her  old  protege'  that 
she  was  buying  his  books  and  getting  insight  into  his 
views,  flattering  him,  calling  herself  his  "very  obedient 
daughter  and  disciple,"  she  did  her  utmost  to  bring  him  to 
reason.  Vain  illusion !  Ochino  was  a  monk,  Vittoria  a 
noble  lady ;  they  belonged  to  two  jarring  worlds. 

Margaret  of  France  wished  to  play  the  same  part,  but  she 
found  herself  in  a  more  embarrassing  situation,  and  under- 
stood still  less,  if  possible,  the  real  bearing  of  the  struggle. 
She  dreamed  of  reforming  humanity,  not  dogmas ;  she  left 
to  God  the  task  of  winning  the  victory  and  causing  the 
"word  of  truth"  to  shine  forth.  Why  limit  the  range  of 
these  dreams  ?  "  The  Church  is  a  living  and  active  voice, 
which  is  its  own  explanation,  and  can  always  express  itself 
anew  and  more  abundantly."  Why  this  procreation  of 
rigorous  dogmas,  to  the  ruin  of  the  feminine  apostleship  ? 
Margaret  pressed  towards  synthesis ;  she  wished  to  know,  to 
co-ordinate,  to  succeed.  BriQonnet  wrote  to  her  smilingly : 
"  If  there  were  at  the  end  of  the  earth  a  learned  doctor  who, 
by  means  of  a  single  compendium,  could  teach  the  whole 
art  of  grammar,  besides  rhetoric,  philosophy  and  the  seven 
liberal  arts,  you  would  rush  to  him  as  a  cold  man  rushes 
to  the  fire." 

Where  then  was  she  to  seek  the  illumination  of  love  and 
faith  if  not  in  that  religious  philosophy  towards  which  she 
had  always  inclined  ?  In  regard  to  faith,  still  more  than  in 
social  matters,  she  felt  how  good  it  was  to  soar  into  the 
heights  of  abstraction,  to  go  direct  to  the  verities  without 
troubling  about  men.  How  cramping  it  would  have  seemed 
to  her  to  embody  all  theology  and  all  faith,  both  Paradise 
and  Hell,  in  one  man,  in  one  priest !  She  smiled  on  men, 
provided  they  were  men  of  good-will,  even  if  they  burnt 
others,  as  Francis  I.  did,  but  still  more  if  they  were  burnt 
or  in  danger  of  burning,  like  "that  poor  Berquin,"  or  the 

1,1  You  cannot  imagine  anyone  more  useful  or  holy,"  her  friend  Bembo 
wrote;  "I  understand  why  your  ladyship  is  so  fond  of  him!"  Acain : 
"Our  brother  Bernardino  is  adored  here:  men,  women,  everybody  lauds 
him  to  the  skies.  .  .  ■  I  hope  some  day  to  converse  with  your  ladyship 
about  him." 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  471 

chaplain  Michel,  or  the  canons  of  Bourges,  or  Farel,  Vatable, 
Gerard  Roussel.1  A  man  might  translate  the  Thomist 
work  the  Mirror  of  Ladies ;  might  call  himself  Lefevre 
d'Etaples,  faber  ingeniorum,  or  Dolet;  might  be  a  witty 
libertine  like  Pocques  or  Duval — no  matter,  he  had  claims 
on  her  affection,  if  he  was  well  disposed.  She  delighted  in 
hearing  Erasmus  and  Luther  discuss  the  question  of  free- 
will. She  looked  on  at  these  passages  at  arms  with  the 
same  satisfaction  as  others  witnessed  a  tourney.  In  concert 
with  a  lady  of  influence,  she  dragged  the  king  to  St. 
Eustace,  to  hear  a  sermon  by  a  whirlwind  of  a  parson  who 
preached  peace  and  sursum  corda.  She  was  anxious  to 
arrange  at  Paris  a  controversial  meeting  with  Melanchthon, 
but  the  Faculty  of  Theology  was  not  agreeable.  The 
theologian  really  after  her  own  heart  was  the  amiable 
prelate  Nicolas  Dangu,  who  followed  her  everywhere  like  a 
perfect  lover. 

There  was  yet  another  man  able  to  please  her ;  a  sort  of 
magian,  remarkable  in  spite  of  his  wild  notions,  who  carried 
feminine  theology  to  the  pitch  of  absurdity.  This  was 
Guillaume  Postel,  a  workhouse  foundling,  a  nobody,  a 
village  brat  and  then  a  lackey,  half  oriental,  half  Italian, 
though  a  Frenchman :  a  man  of  eminent  learning  and 
enlightened  mind,  the  fine  essence  of  eclecticism.  He  wrote 
in  twelve    languages    on    the    most    various    subjects,   in 

aLavardin  also  touched  the  chords  of  feeling,  and  was  thereupon  con- 
gratulated by  Bonsard  in  a  sonnet :  he  translated  for  the  princess  a 
dialogue  by  Mark  Antony  Natta,  on  the  Nature  of  God.  He  acknowledges 
that  in  reality  the  subject  seems  to  him  inaccessible,  whether  one  takes 
the  wings  of  an  eagle  or  descends  into  the  depths  :  in  the  end  he  thinks 
that  the  incomprehensible  had  better  be  left  to  faith.  But  he  dedicates 
this  work  to  Margaret  in  excellent  verse : 

A  quel  plus  propre  autel  pourrions-nous  presenter 
Le  sujet  immortel  de  ce  precieux  livre  ? 

...O  perle,  6  Marguerite, 
O  beau  fleurou  royal,  vostre  sang  tres  chrestien, 
Et  toutes  les  vertus  dont  vostre  grace  herite  ... 

Nous  font  foy ... 
Que  des  enfans  de  Dieu  vous  serez  le  soutien. 

[To  what  more  seemly  altar  could  we  bring 
The  immortal  subject  of  this  precious  book  ? 

0  pearl,  O  Margaret, 
Fair  queenly  gem,  thy  purest  Christian  ray 
And  all  the  virtues  by  thy  grace  possest 

To  us  attest 
God's  children  all  will  find  in  thee  their  stay.] 


472      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

support  of  the  most  diversified  theses.  He  advocated  a 
universal  monarchy  which  he  offered  to  Francis  L,  and  a 
universal  religion,  genuinely  catholic  and  Roman,  the 
papacy  of  which  he  reserved  for  himself.  He  based  it  upon 
the  doctrine  of  infinite  love  (if  need  be,  a  somewhat  sensual 
love),  and  upon  an  aesthetic  philosophy  which  should  solve 
all  mysteries  by  applying  tne  formula  of  the  Beautiful. 
According  to  this  religion,  it  was  for  women  to  regenerate 
the  world ;  wherefore  he  salutes  with  ardent  sympathy  the 
Mothers  of  the  Church  whom  he  sees  budding  forth  almost 
everywhere — More's  daughters  in  England ;  Isabella  Rosera 
in  Spain;  in  Portugal  Loysa  Sygea  who  at  the  age  of 
twenty-two  honoured  Pope  Paul  III.  with  her  advice  in 
five  little-known  languages.  Paul  replied  in  Latin,  Greek 
and  Hebrew,  but  excused  himself  in  regard  to  Chaldean 
and  Arabic,  and  instructed  Postel  to  take  the  pen. 

Postel's  strange  work1  appeared  after  the  death  of  Margaret 
of  France,  under  the  auspices  of  Margaret  of  Savoy.  Postel 
announced  the  discovery  of  a  new  Eve,  whom  he  extolled 
above  all  other  women,  even  above  Vittoria  Colonna.  She 
was  an  aged  sorceress  of  Venice,  endowed  with  second 
sight,  who  read  through  paper  as  if  she  had  the  Rbntgen 
rays  at  her  disposal.  Unhappily  the  Venetians  sent  her 
about  her  business. 

To  sum  up,  the  women  believed  and  maintained  that,  in 
dealing  with  the  people,  the  only  language  they  under- 
stood must  be  employed — that  of  force;  but  that  for  the 
elect  there  was  only  one  real  weapon — the  matchless  one, 
liberty.  The  first  of  liberties  is  that  of  talking  nonsense. 
It  was  needful,  then,  to  be  able  to  tolerate  freedom  in 
others,  one's  own  friends  included. 

The  practical  result  of  women's  intervention  was  in 
France  insignificant  enough. 

The  long-standing  hostility  of  the  French  clergy  to  the 
court  of  Rome  had  burst  out  so  glaringly  in  the  reign  of 
Louis  XII.,  it  displayed  itself  so  vigorously  in  the  more  or 
less  official  dithyrambs  of  Andrelini,  Villebresme,  De  Mailly, 
Gringoire,  Jean  d'Auton,  Seyssel,  against  the  "Roman 
profligacy,"  that  Leo  X.  became  alarmed  and  very  prudently 
abandoned  in  1515  the  real  bone  of  contention,  the  right  to 
dispose   of  benefices.      From   that    moment    the    Church, 

1  Lea  tres  merveilhusea  Victoirts. 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  473 

fused  with  the  State,  became  a  national  machine,  and  no 
philosophic  argument  could  in  future  shake  an  organisation 
so  solid.  Luther  gave  wide  application  to  the  same  system 
in  secularising  the  property  of  the  clergy.  The  ruck  of  men 
left  the  business  of  dealing  with  these  religious  questions  to 
the  higher  powers ;  they  held  to  their  creed  either  out  of  a 
taste  for  ignorance  or  from  scepticism ;  the  learned  were 
quite  content  to  smile  and  call  theology  a  "poesy" — like 
vine-growers  who  sell  a  certain  doctored  wine,  but  keep  the 
genuine  locked  up  in  their  cellars — the  wine  they  alone  are 
sure  of  because  they  cut  the  grapes. 

Liberalism  was  supported,  then,  by  only  a  few  timid  and 
affectionate  voices,  like  that  of  Longueil,  the  friend  of 
Bembo  and  Pole,  who  said  in  his  Letter  to  the  Lutherans : 
"I  take  no  side  in  the  struggle:  a  simple  citizen  of  the 
Christian  republic,  neither  gratitude,  nor  hate,  nor  ambition 
impels  me  to  one  side  or  the  other."  Unhappily,  it  is  not 
with  lofty  language  like  this  that  you  can  rouse  a  mob ! 

Is  it  necessary  to  recall  what  followed  ?  It  was  at  all 
points  the  reverse  of  what  the  feminists  had  hoped.  "  Our 
adversaries  say  of  us,"  wrote  Calvin,  "  that  we  have  begun 
a  sort  of  Trojan  war,  on  account  of  women,  mulierum 
causa."  And  in  truth,  as  in  the  wars  of  the  past, 
women  had  again  become  to  a  certain  extent  the  gage  of 
battle.  Religion  declared  war  on  platonism,  just  as 
platonism  had  declared  war  on  religious  virginity ;  instead 
of  draping  women  in  inaccessibility,  people  contented  them- 
selves with  making  matrimony  easier.  That  was  a  simple 
solution  of  the  difficulty.  And  yet  it  took  longer  than 
might  be  supposed  to  get  back  to  this  solid  ground  of 
matter-of-fact.  The  first  woman  espoused  by  an  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury  was  obliged,  it  appears,  to  travel  like  an 
animal  in  a  chest  pierced  with  holes,  so  as  to  escape  the 
buffooneries  of  the  mob;  the  second  went  to  court;  but 
when  Queen  Elizabeth  saw  her  she  bit  her  lips :  "  What  am 
I  to  call  you  ?     Madam  I  cannot,  and  Mistress  I  dare  not." 

Catholicism,  roused  to  action,  henceforth  asked  for  no- 
thing except  to  condemn.  It  was  a  sudden  drop  from  the 
ideal  back  again  to  earth,  a  dreadful  battle  of  personalities, 
a  life  and  death  struggle  with  mythical  or  literal  methods  of 
exegesis  for  weapons.  Erasmus  was  already  writing:  "These 
interpreters  of  the  language  of  Heaven  go  off  like  gunpowder, 


474      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

they  frown  most  terribly.  What  is  Hiitten  to  me  ?  Shall 
I  prefer  the  authority  of  Luther  to  that  of  the  pope  ?  If  we 
had  not  received  a  pope  from  Christ,  we  should  have  to 
invent  one."  "They  scream  and  scuffle  and  insult  one 
another,"  sneers  Des  Pe'riers,  who  no  longer  believed  even 
in  the  existence  of  God.  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit, 
concludes  Agrippa ;  blessed  are  illiterate  people  like  the 
apostles ;  blessed  is  the  ass  1 


CONCLUSION 

Nothing  now  remains  but  to  relate  the  conclusion  of  the 
dream. 

A  dream  indeed — all  these  schemes  of  happiness  which 
had  flashed  across  the  gloomy  background  of  realities  like 
dissolving  views  on  the  wall  of  a  lecture-room :  the  blue 
sea,  the  blazing  sun,  appearing  but  for  a  moment,  left  the 
blackness  deeper  still. 

Margaret,  the  great  organiser  of  happiness,  never  found 
the  secret  of  happiness  for  herself.  Her  last  days  were 
vexed  with  the  most  poignant  sorrows :  the  court,  Calvin, 
the  people,  well-nigh  the  whole  world, cast  her  off  and  treated 
her  as  a  Utopian  dreamer :  her  husband  went  the  length  of 
striking  her,  her  daughter  was  torn  from  her,  and  Henri  II. 
sent  her  into  exile ;  several  of  her  friends,  such  as  Ramus 
and  Dolet,  were  persecuted,  alas !  from  motives  far  from 
sincere :  it  was,  in  truth,  what  she  called  "  the  suburbs  of 
death."  By  divine  mercy  her  heart,  incessantly  a  prey  to 
anxieties,  at  length  parted  company  with  a  life  that  was 
anything  but  love.  She  perished,  poor  duchess,  at  her  post 
as  charitable  vendor  of  love — perished  in  flames,  like  the 
salamander!  No  man  came  to  her  aid,  none  even  paused 
to  mourn  her.  Three  young  English  maidens  named 
Seymour  erected  to  her  a  frail  monument  of  verse  under  the 
auspices  of  her  niece;  but  save  for  one  devoted  friend, 
Sainte-Marthe,  whose  enthusiastic  funeral  oration  never- 
theless provoked  the  liveliest  criticisms,  men  maintained  a 
remarkable  silence.  The  princess  had  greatly  erred  in 
scattering  her  affections  and  seeking  to  create  a  sociology 
of  the  heart.  Men  do  not  care  for  love,  they  wish  to 
fear  and  obey  !  There  is  no  true  love  but  the  love  of 
an  individual. 

475 


476      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

The  Saint-Gelais,  the  Heroets,  the  Salels,  all  those 
exquisite  hearts  bubbling  over  with  sentiment  when  a 
smile  from  Margaret  could  lead  them  to  fortune,  now 
remained  mute ;  the  drum  had  to  be  set  a-beating,  and  then 
at  length  there  appeared  a  volume  of  elegies,  a  subtle 
fantasia  in  many  tongues,  which  would  have  been  cold 
as  ice  but  for  the  vigorous  beam  Ronsard  shot  into  the 
midst  of  the  medley — a  tiny  volume,  brilliant,  ingenious, 
perverse,  like  the  princess's  soul,  full  of  pretty  verses  all 
alike — alike  in  expression,  with  the  same  silvery  veneer  of 
tenderness — the  very  image  of  the  somewhat  phantasmagoric 
and  unreal  moonshine  in  which  some  mystic  women  de- 
lighted :  brightness,  but  no  warmth  or  light.  Yes,  Margaret 
was  too  fond  of  these  intense  lights  and  shades.  A  thousand 
causeless  murmurings  woke  echoes  in  her  soul.  She  sustained 
herself  upon  the  subtle  aroma  wafted  on  certain  nights  upon 
the  breath  of  the  quickening  world.  She  never  heard  the 
full,  resounding  roar  of  the  sea  in  the  darkness,  but  was 
content  to  see  the  fringe  of  foam. 

At  the  moment  when  Margaret  disappeared,  the  power  of 
women  in  France  seemed  at  its  apogee ;  in  reality,  it  was  on 
the  wane.  It  was  attacked  more  especially  on  the  moral  side. 
According  to  so-called  Puritans  like  Agrippa,  the  influence 
of  women  resulted  in  the  declension  of  morals ;  and  what  a 
declension !  Everything  converged  towards  the  joys  of 
the  senses  ;  painters  could  no  longer  paint  anything  but 
bower  scenes,  architects  could  only  open  doors  or  pierce 
balconies,  husbands  only  speculate  on  the  exploits  of  their 
wives,  Lather  only  recommend  the  reading  of  stories 
(sometimes  astonishing)  from  the  Bible. 

Unquestionably,  feminine  influences,  even  the  purest, 
seemed  soft  and  enervating.  The  energetic  spirit  of  old 
France,  of  the  time  before  Francis  I.,  sprang  suddenly  to 
life  again.  A  country  gentleman,  Du  Bellay,  sounded 
the  charge  against  Roman  cosmopolitanism  by  claiming 
France  for  the  French.  At  one  stroke,  as  J.  M.  de  Heredia 
has  said,  his  clear  and  picturesque  style  clean  obliterated 
Marot,  Saint-Gelais,  and  the  whole  of  Margaret's  school. 
Du  Bellay  would  have  loved  Savonarola:  he  speaks  the 
same  tongue  as  the  friends  of  Anne  of  France ;  he  has 
sworn  implacable  hatred  against  platonism  with  its  cloying 
sweetness,  against   the   languors  of  petrarchism  :  "  He  has 


CONCLUSION  477 

not  breathed  in  the  ardour  that  sets  Italy  in  flame." 
Though  he  has  seen  Rome,  decadent  Rome,  he  has  not 
caught  her  infection ;  it  is  she  that  he  blames,  and  yet 
the  "  bashful  squires,"  the  "exiles  from  joyance,"  and  other 
vulgar  "  fantasticals,"  whom  he  flagellates  and  sends  packing 
along  with  the  Round  Table,  were  very  often  French.  He 
has  in  his  veins  the  proud  and  lusty  blood  of  a  soldier. 
Like  Anne  of  France  he  worships  truth,  and  candour,  and 
lucidity. 

Ronsard  too,  of  like  blood  and  ancestry,  advocates  truth  : 
"  I  love  not  the  false,  I  love  the  true."  He  overwhelms  with 
his  vigorous  eloquence  all  sham  loves,  "  Cupids  with  curled 
love-locks,  but  broken  arrow "  ;  all  the  platonic  cant,  so 
virtuous  in  show  and  so  little  virtuous  in  fact:  and  all 
these  refinements,  and  hypocrisies,  and  conceits  on  twofold 
incorporeal  love ! 

Aimer  l'esprit,  Madame,  c'est  aimer  la  sottise.1 

The  voices  of  these  two  men  stirred  up  no  little  commo- 
tion among  a  large  number  of  the  lesser  nobility  or 
quasi-nobility,  men  of  middling  station,  less  sensible  to 
high-falutin'  than  to  the  spirit  of  frankness  and  inde- 
pendence— "  gaillards,"  as  they  styled  themselves,  who  loved 
women  as  they  loved  "  daylight  and  the  sun,"  but  as  men, 
by  no  means  with  an  idea  of  "  playing  lackey  to  a 
mistress,"  particularly  one  who  was  wrinkled,  painted,  or 
terribly  accomplished. 

De  Junon  sont  vos  bras,  des  graces  vostre  sein, 
Vous  avez  de  l'aurore  et  le  front  et  la  main, 
Mais  vous  avez  le  cceur  d'une  fiere  lionne.2 

That  was  their  type.  And  they  laughed  at  the  Vadiuses 
and  Trissotins 3  of  their  day,  at  all  the  fine  carollings  that 
Du  Bellay  amused  himself  by  imitating,  forgotten  tunes  of 
long  ago,  the  faded  frippery  of  the  ballroom.  What  merri- 
ment there  is  when  a  belated  poet  returns  from  Italy  with 

1  To  love  the  mind,  Madam,  is  loving  folly. 
8  Your  arms  are  Juno's,  and  your  breast 
The  Graces  have  witli  beauty  drest ; 
Your  hand  and  brow  Aurora  sent, 
A  lioness  proud  your  heart  has  lent. 
3  [Trissotin  is  the  affected  coxcomb  and  Vadius  the  pedant  of  Moliere's 
famous  comedy,  Lcs  Ftmmes  savantts  (Act  iii.  scene  v.).] 


478      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

another  Amadis !  Neither  Olivier  de  Magny  nor  Bai'f  will 
take  the  moon  for  the  sun,  or  love  for  a  mere  ornamentation. 
The  men  of  the  Pldiade  had  no  love  for  patronage  or 
the  Medici  species.  They  hated  and  abhorred  the  Jews. 
Ronsard  would  have  liked  to  see  a  fine  St.  Bartholomew 
butchery  of  them,  and  could  not  forgive  Titus  for  wasting 
his  chances:  his  gorge  rises  at  the  thought  of  a  Leo  the 
Hebrew1  figuring  among  the  sages  of  platonism.  Good 
decent  fellows,  they  drape  themselves  in  their  somewhat 
rustic  free-and-easiness.  From  their  modest  snuggeries  they 
proudly  tell  the  king  "  Nature  has  made  us  of  the  same  flesh 
and  blood  as  you "  ; 2  they  do  not  hesitate  to  write  to  a 
Medici  lady  that  the  finest  royalty  is  to  be  "  king  of  oneself."8 
They  vie  with  one  another  in  launching  their  epigrams 
against  the  court,  the  salons,  the  ruling  women  ;4  they  sing 
of  woods  and  dales,  even  of  the  wild  untrammelled  life — 

O  bienheureux  le  sidcle  ou  le  peuple  sauvage 
Vivoit,  par  les  forets,  de  gland  et  de  fruitage.6 

— Ronsard. 

1  [A  Jewish  physician  whose  Dialogues  on  Love  were  printed  at  Venice 
in  1549.] 

9  Ronsard  to  Henri  III. 

*  Baif  to  Catherine  de'  Medici. 

*L'homme  a  la  femme  y  rend  ob&SBance ... 
L'esprit  bon  s'y  fait  lourd,  la  femme  s'y  diffame, 
La  fille  y  perd  sa  honte,  la  veuve  y  acquiert  blasme. 
Tous  y  sont  desguisez  :  la  fille  y  va  sans  mere, 
La  femme  sans  mary,  le  prestre  sans  breviaire. 
[At  court  the  woman  rules  the  man  ... 

The  brightest  wit  grows  sluggish,  and  women  smirch  their  fame, 
The  maid  loses  her  modesty,  the  widow  her  good  name. 
All  there  is  masquerade  :  the  girl  without  her  mother  fares, 
Wife  without  husband  ;  and  the  priest  no  breviary  bears.] 
All  they  think  of  there  is 

mendier  le  goust  d'une  vaine  fumee 
(Qui  s'acquiert  a  grand'peine,  et  tost  est  consumed), 
Piaffer,  se  friser,  a  faire  l'amoureux. 

(Jean  de  la  Taille,  Satires). 
[to  beg  a  spark  of  empty  praise 
(That's  very  hard  to  kindle,  and  too  quickly  burns  away), 
To  cut  a  dash,  and  dandify,  a  lover's  part  to  play.] 

8  [Happy  the  age  when  wild  in  woods 
The  naked  savage  ran, 
When  nuts  and  apples  were  his  foods, 
And  man  was  yet  a  man.] 


CONCLUSION  479 

They  sing  praise  to  Nature  their  mother,  not  an  abstraction, 
an  infinity,  but  immeasurable  i1  the  lines  of  the  horizon,  it 
would  seem,  spring  from  their  hearts,  and  like  an  outspread 
fan  gather  up  the  whole  immensity  of  life.  How  remote 
this  from  the  gardens  of  philosophy  ordered  so  delicately, 
with  their  shimmering  fountains,  their  shivering  Venuses  !  2 
When  under  a  clear  Roman  sky  Du  Bellay  is  sauntering 
in  pleasant  indolence  amid  all  the  pomp  and  luxury  of  cul- 
tured prelates,  enjoying  the  serene  life  of  country  villas ; 
when,  as  a  background  to  the  picture,  behind  carriages  and 
laurels,  fashionable  women  and  noble  statues,  he  sees  flushed 
in  a  golden  haze  the  forest  of  towers,  and  pediments,  and 
obelisks,  and  St.  Peter's  in  all  its  majesty,  the  glory  of 
the  world,  what  does  his  heart  say  to  him  ? 

Quand  reverray-je,  helas  !  de  mon  petit  village 
Fumer  la  cheminee  ?  s 

Such  was  the  sentiment  of  the  Pl&ade. 

Social  philosophy  had  changed  all  at  once.  People  were 
weary  of  the  idea  of  the  beautiful,  and  henceforth  the  wind 
was  to  set  towards  scepticism:  no  longer  an  airy,  Ciceronian, 
superficial  scepticism,  the  scepticism  of  Cardan,  or  of  Eras- 
mus, the  jabberer  of  Latin,  the  flouter  of  monks,  often 
madder  than  the  madmen  he  derides,  but  a  masculine 
aggressive  scepticism,  which  believes  in  nothing  in  this 
world,  not  even  in  love,  and  is  incredulous  about  the  other 
world  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  Yet  it  feels  an 
"  impression "  of  the  unseen :  deprived  of  an  ideal  for  this 
life,  it  must  willy-nilly  suppose  another  apart  from  mortal 

1  Malta  tegit  sacro  involucro  Natura  ;  neque  ullia 
Fas  est  scire  quidem  niortalibus  omnia  ;  niulta 
Admirare  mode-,  necnon  venerare,  neque  ilia 
Inquires  quae  sunt  arcanis  proxima. 

[Nature  conceals  many  things  within  her  sacred  shrine  ;  nor  may  any 
mortal  presume  to  know  all  things ;  many  things  indeed  thou  mayst 
admire,  aye,  reverence,  without  prying  into  those  that  lie  closest  to  the 
mysteries.  ] 

a  Yet  Ronsard  and  his  friends  made  the  mistake  of  believing  that  the 
language  should  be  aristocratic,  and  that  it  was  for  writers,  not  for  the 
people,  to  form  or  reform  it. 

3  [Alas  !  when  shall  I  see  again 
The  smoking  chimneys  of  my  village  home?] 


480      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

men,  and  thus  yearningly,  gropingly,  unawares,  it  takes  a 
step  towards  Christ. 

And  then  those  who  are  still  reasoning  in  this  untoward 
generation  laugh  or  weep.  What  a  harsh  harrowing  laugh 
is  that  of  Boistuau,1  who  had  nevertheless  been  a  friend  of 
Margaret !  Boistuau  speaks  to  us  of  love,  and  tells  us  that 
it  is  a  distressing  malady  of  the  mind,  characterised  by 
symptoms  of  agitation  and  disorder,  and  exhausting  all 
its  energies,  physical  and  moral.  You  hear  those  attacked 
by  it  groaning  and  dropping  words  like  "  coral,  alabaster, 
roses,  lilies " ;  they  have  lost  all  individuality ;  they  sob 
and  abase  themselves  and  are  a  continual  supplication. 
The  cause  of  the  malady  is  obscure ;  some  speak  of 
magnetism,  others  of  microbes,  others  of  the  influence  of 
the  stars. 

It  was  this  kind  of  scepticism  which  was  destined  to  lead 
us  to  the  morality  of  Charles  IX.'s  court. 

Then  it  was  seen  how  fatal  had  been  the  disease  of  sensi- 
bility, and  the  profound  soul-weariness  which  resulted 
from  imaginative  pleasures,  from  the  mirage  which  overlay 
the  things  of  life  since  women  had  undertaken  to  interpret 
everything  through  the  affections.  It  had  been  a  woful 
error  to  create  an  art  of  sensibility !  Sensibility  serves  to 
attract  men,  but  cannot  hold  or  guide  them.  Women 
believe  in  sensibility  because  they  always  consider  the 
heart  of  a  man  as  a  reservoir  of  moral  strength.  It  is  the 
other  way  about;  men  for  the  most  part  err  through 
weakness;  it  is  that  which  renders  them  inconstant  and 
vicious.  They  would  gain  in  steadfastness  and  goodness  if 
women,  less  timid  and  more  active,  had  strength  rather 
than  tenacity,  and  a  real  energy  under  an  appearance  of 
tenderness. 

An  attempt  was  made,  but  too  late,  to  show  that  the 
feminist  spirit  could  display  energy  as  well  as  tenderness. 

A  certain  Almanque  Papillon2  proposed  a  new  formula  of 
love,  more  robust  than  platonism,  and  bound,  as  he  thought, 
to  render  men  truly  "  virtuous  and  not  effeminate."    Francois 

1  [A  popular  French  writer  (died  in  1566).  He  translated  Bandello  into 
French,  and  his  TJiA&tre  du  Monde,  in  which  he  discussed  "the  woes  of 
humanity  and  the  dignity  and  excellence  of  man,"  ran  into  twenty 
editions.] 

'[His  Xouvtl  Amour  appeared  along  with  Hlroetfa  Opuscules  d' Amour.] 


CONCLUSION  481 

Billon,  one  of  the  royal  secretaries,  wandering  one  evening 
amid  the  ruins  of  Rome,  felt  the  touch  of  grace  within 
himself.  He  dreamed  of  writing  a  book  entitled  The 
Impregnable  Fortress  of  the  Female  Sex.  He  descried  and 
saluted  among  the  shadows  a  number  of  vigorous  women — 
Catherine  de'  Medici  and  Jeanne  d'Albret,  more  valorous 
than  any  man;  Mesdames  de  Berry  and  de  Nevers,  sur- 
passingly witty;  Anne  d'Este,  duchess  of  Guise,  the  elo- 
quence of  fleshly  beauty.  Billon  made  his  book,  but  not  his 
fortune.  Under  the  Valois,  many  women  were  not  anxious 
to  be  too  well  defended. 

Ronsard  and  Du  Bellay  triumphed,  then :  and  yet,  to  all 
appearance,  their  triumph  troubled  them ;  they  hankered 
after  ideas  they  had  gone  about  to  destroy ;  they  mistrusted 
themselves,  their  friends,  their  principles.  Ronsard  had  an 
admirable  genius,  but  he  hesitated  between  an  attempt 
to  satisfy  the  popular  naturalism  with  the  crudities  so 
much  in  request,  and  an  instinctive  thirst  for  an  aristocratic 
spiritualism.  He  followed  rather  than  led  the  movement; 
both  he  and  Du  Bellay,  in  spite  of  their  robust  breezy 
energies,  remained  more  sensitive  than  they  cared  to 
acknowledge  to  the  charm  of  classical  art  and  the  gracious- 
ness  of  the  salons. 

Further,  an  eminent  woman  kept  a  tight  rein  on  the 
Ple'iade,  and  showed  them  that  graciousness  was  not  neces- 
sarily tameness,  that  there  were  women's  hearts  at  once 
ardent  and  strong,  that  it  is  possible  to  retain  practical  views 
of  life  while  "  rising  wholly  towards  spiritual  things."  This 
woman  was  the  niece  and  goddaughter  of  Margaret  of 
France,  her  spiritual  daughter  and  the  faithful  guardian 
of  her  fame — the  second  Margaret  of  France,  duchess  of 
Berry  and  afterwards  duchess  of  Savoy. 

She  pursued  a  totally  different  method  from  her  aunt. 
She  abandoned  philosophy,  intuitions,  mystic  professions  of 
faith:  instead  of  wearing  black  she  dressed  fashionably, 
tricking  herself  out  with  jewels  and  brightly -coloured 
materials:  thus  (pardon  the  detail)  she  used  handkerchiefs 
of  crimson  silk :  that  formed  part  of  her  psychology.  Her 
household  was  maintained  on  a  very  princely  scale,  and 
directed  by  the  solemn  Madame  de  Brissac,  who  never 
shifted  her  quarters  without  taking  with  her  a  huge  pile  of 
dresses  and  especially  a  terribly  big  bed,  which  alone  required 

2h 


482      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

several  mules  to  carry  it;  the  moment  the  destination 
was  reached,  Madame  de  Brissac's  bed  had  to  be  set  up  with 
infinite  precautions,  as  though  it  were  a  shrine.  One  can 
guess  how  the  treasurer,  among  many  other  people,  grumbled ; 
but  the  princess  was  so  kind ! 

With  this  system  of  simplified  morals  and  external 
complexity,  Margaret  of  Savoy  exercised  extraordinary 
fascination  over  men's  affections.  She  had  adopted  as 
emblem  an  olive  branch  guarded  by  serpents,  with  the 
motto,  "Sagesse,  gardienne  des  choses!  "  She  resembled,  as  a 
poet  tells  us,  "  a  rose-bud,  nourished  on  celestial  dew,"  and 
received  the  nickname  of  Pallas.  She  was  just  the  woman 
to  govern  vigorous  men :  a  woman  of  taste  and  intelligence, 
who  had  a  passion  for  winning  love,  but  with  much  breadth 
and  dignity,  and  without  recourse  to  the  spiritual  and 
material  experiments  of  her  aunt.  Her  secret  she  had  not 
gone  far  to  seek,  but  had  found  simply  in  her  woman's 
heart;  her  Machiavelism  consisted  in  a  kindliness  carried 
to  perfection,  intelligent,  active,  ingenious — a  refined  good- 
heartedness,  which  embraced  both  rich  and  poor.  Des 
Pdriers  himself  could  not  refrain  from  speaking  of  it  in  a  tone 
of  respect  and  sympathy  quite  unusual  in  him ;  Brantome 
has  painted  the  princess  in  one  magnificent  phrase :  "  She 
was  the  goodness  of  the  world." 

And  we  must  not  forget  that  life  had  not  spared  her  hard 
lessons.  The  poor  woman's  greatest  ambition  was  to  root 
and  ground  herself  in  the  family  affections,  and  these 
affections  had  been  torn  from  her  one  by  one  with  her 
heart's  blood.  Her  father  Francis  I.  had  as  little  to  do 
with  her  as  possible,  indeed,  but  scantily  appreciated  her. 
She  lost  her  brother  Charles  miserably  enough ;  at  that 
period  it  was  not  the  custom  to  care  for  life's  halt  and 
maimed,  yet  Margaret  sedulously  watched  over  servants  who 
were  out  of  employment.  Her  heart  was  wrapped  up  in 
her  sister  Madeleine.  Madeleine  coveted  a  crown ;  she  went 
to  Scotland,  and  six  months  afterwards  came  news  of  her 
death.  Margaret  was  so  grievously  stricken  that  she 
remained  in  utter  prostration,  and  it  was  doubtful  for  some 
time  whether  her  health  would  recover  from  the  shock. 
Her  aunt  Margaret  had  to  intervene  to  insist  on  her  taking 
care  of  herself,  and  going  for  long  morning  walks  in  the 
park  of  Fontainebleau. 


CONCLUSION  483 

Thus,  instead  of  "devouring  her  heart,"  in  the  forcible 
phrase  of  Pythagoras,  this  noble  princess  made  existence  a 
song  of  grave  and  warm  passion,  not  a  song  of  love. 

Her  disappointments  were  no  fewer,  it  is  true,  since  it  is 
a  natural  law  for  the  heart  to  be  deceived  in  its  hopes,  like 
the  reason;  but  she  found  less  bitterness  and  more  grief; 
the  wholesome  contact  with  real  suffering,  in  bringing 
out  the  true  power  of  sympathy,  saved  her  from  social 
and  intellectual  extravagances,  and  bred  in  her  that  per- 
fection of  tenderness  which  no  one  could  resist ;  for  the 
world  itself  loves  to  be  treated  seriously. 

The  passion  Du  Bellay  felt  for  her  in  no  way  resembles 
either  the  flowery  sentimentalism  to  which  princesses  had 
till  then  been  accustomed,  or  the  coarse  freedom  of  Marot's 
school :  it  was  a  constant,  sincere,  and  lasting  passion.  On 
returning  from  Italy,  he  exclaims  with  the  same  emotion  as 
at  his  departure : 

Alors,  je  m'apercus  qu'ignorant  son  merite, 
J'avois,  sans  la  connoistre,  admire  Marguerite, 
Comme,  sans  les  connoistre,  on  admire  les  cieux.1 

And  these  are  not  mere  idle  words.  Many  years  afterwards, 
when  it  came  to  Margaret's  turn  to  leave  her  country,  the 
poor  poet,  struck,  no  doubt,  with  presentiments  of  an 
imminent  death,  shed  real  tears,  "  the  truest  tears  that  e'er 
I  shed." 

The  great  sense  of  truth  and  constancy  that  Margaret 
carried  into  the  concerns  of  the  heart  she  applied  also  to  the 
concerns  of  the  mind.  She  showed,  like  Anne  of  France,  how 
women  were  slandered,  how  they  slandered  themselves 
when  they  fancied  they  were  incapable  of  a  genuine  effort ; 
instead  of  pouring  out  a  stream  of  conversation  and  writings 
like  her  aunt,  and  of  trusting  to  her  impressionability  merely, 
she  applied  herself  with  all  the  force  of  a  fine  intellectual 
health  to  the  most  rigorous  tasks  involved  in  the  discipline 
of  truth.  Many  scholars  by  profession  would  not  have 
pushed  solicitude  for  the  niceties  of  truth  so  far.  She  got 
ner  reader,  for  instance,  to  buy  for  her  at  Paris  three 
different  editions  of  Cicero's  Offices;  she  read  Aristotle's 

1  [Then  I  perceived  that,  ignorant  as  yet 
Of  her  high  worth,  I  worshipped  Margaret, 
As,  all  unwitting,  we  admire  the  heavens.] 


484      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Ethics  simultaneously  in  Greek  and  in  a  Latin  translation ; 
she  collated  six  commentaries  on  Horace. 

Although  entirely  French — she  was  much  more  French 
than  her  aunt — she  set  herself  to  stem  the  somewhat  too 
violent  tide  of  reaction  setting  in  against  Italy.  Like  Louis 
XII.  before  her,  she  thought  there  was  much  in  Italy  and  the 
classics  that  was  worth  adopting ;  while  she  read  Aristotle 
she  proclaimed  Urbino  the  "school  of  knowledge,"  and  Du 
Bellay  had  to  draw  in  his  horns  and,  under  her  gentle 
guidance,  acknowledge  the  charm  which  he  did  not  feel 
spontaneously.  He  not  only  translated  Bembo  and 
Naugerius,1  but  went  so  far  as  to  agree  that  time  would 
never  extinguish  the  fame  of  Boccaccio,  and  that  the  laurels 
of  Petrarch  would  remain  for  ever  green. 

She  did  more  (for  the  words  "art"  and  "patriotism" 
cloaked  in  reality  questions  infinitely  smaller,  and  larger — 
questions  of  personal  jealousies) ;  she  had  the  courage  to 
keep  by  her  side  an  Italian,  Baccio  del  Bene,  an  enthusiastic 
worshipper  of  the  "  pearl  of  the  West,"  who  declared  he  had 
been  saved  by  her  bright  eyes,  "  his  stars,"  from  the  direst 
of  shipwrecks.  Ronsard  undertook,  against  wind  and  tide 
and  his  own  convictions,  to  rehabilitate  this  relic  of  the 
past,  and  to  proclaim  that  Del  Bene  was  the  only  Italian  for 
two  centuries  who  was  worth  consideration. 

Margaret  long  remained  the  tutelary  "  virgin,"  the  spirited 
■  unbacked  colt,"  running  where  frolic  fancy  led  her,  un- 
fretted  by  the  "spurs  of  love."  Whatever  the  inevitable 
malignity  of  mankind  may  have  said,  she  was  a  perfect 
type  of  platonism,  basking  in  her  many  warm  friendships 
with  men,  and  in  no  hurry  to  be  married.  Too  much 
attached  to  France  to  go  far  away,  too  thoroughly  a 
princess  to  wed  one  of  her  brother's  subjects,  she  fixed 
her  choice  on  the  heir  of  Savoy.  On  one  occasion  she  did 
not  hesitate  to  accompany  her  aunt  to  Nice  and  present 
herself  in  person,  in  defiance  of  the  elementary  rules  of 
etiquette ;  but  as  politics,  the  bane  of  sentimental 
princesses,  threw  obstacles  in  the  way,  she  possessed  her 
soul  in  patience,  and  waited  twenty-one  years.  She  was 
married  in  1559. 

The  king  of  France  ordered  a  magnificent  trousseau,  an 
exact  copy  of  that  of  Madame  de  Lorraine — gold-embroidered 

1  [Andrea  Navagero,  commentator  on  the  classics,  author  of  Viaggio.] 


CONCLUSION  485 

dresses,  laces,  jewels  ;  he  chose  for  the  bridal  dress  a  robe  of 
yellow  satin  with  bodice  embroidered  in  gold,  a  regal  mantle 
trimmed  with  lace  a  foot  wide,  an  evening  cloak  in  silver 
cloth,  lined  with  lynx  fur.  He  commanded  splendid  entertain- 
ments. Everyone  knows  what  followed — Henri  II.  mortally 
wounded  in  the  official  tournament;  this  long-desired 
marriage  consecrated  at  midnight  beside  a  bed  of  anguish. 
Here  truly  was  something  to  amaze  and  strike  with  awe. 
Anyone  with  a  touch  of  superstition  would  have  attributed 
to  the  princess  the  evil  eye. 

They  knew  better,  to  be  sure. 

If  she  was  loved,  it  was  because  she  had  the  very 
uncommon  talent  of  loving  her  friends. 

No  sooner  was  she  in  Piedmont  than  she  seemed  to  have 
thoughts  only  for  them.  She  wrote  to  Catherine  de'  Medici 
commending  Ronsard  to  her  notice,  and  the  poet,  much 
moved,  hastened  to  reply  with  a  noble  apostrophe  to  the 
royal  house  of  France,  "  happy  and  fruitful . . .  mother  of 
such  a  line  of  kings." 

From  time  immemorial  France  and  Piedmont  had  played 
in  the  world  the  somewhat  ungrateful  part  of  quarrelsome 
lovers.  Margaret,  like  a  true  woman,  patched  up  this 
quarrel ;  while  she  lived  there  was  no  open  rupture.  Still 
more,  every  Frenchman  who  visited  Turin  was  conscious  of 
being  anticipated  by  a  gentle  and  invisible  protecting  hand. 
Presented  to  the  duchess,  often  lodged  and  entertained  at 
her  cost,  he  would  receive  in  addition,  anonymously,  a  purse 
to  defray  his  travelling  expenses. 

France  did  not,  therefore,  lose  Margaret  altogether ;  but 
she  planted  in  Savoy  the  sweetness  of  Urbino  with  the 
sparkling  brilliance  of  her  own  land.  At  the  gates  of 
Geneva  she  caused  the  most  perfect  religious  peace  to 
flourish ;  it  was  there  that  Francis  de  Sales  was  born. 
Without  flinging  heart  and  mind  piecemeal  to  the  winds, 
like  her  aunt,  we  see  her  in  a  corner  of  that  violent  16th 
century,  a  radiant  centre  of  kindliness  and  spiritual  illumina- 
tion, surrounded  by  testimonies  of  gratitude  as  by  a 
modest  and  glorious  retinue.  She  often  received  thanks  at 
that  supreme  moment  when  all  men  speak  the  truth.  In 
his  last  hour  Du  Bellay  wept  for  her ;  an  ambassador  of 
France  at  Constantinople  left  her  his  fortune ;  L'Hopital 
declared  in  his  will  that  to  her  he  owed  his  whole  career. 


480      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

She  herself  on  her  deathbed  heaved,  so  to  speak,  the  last 
breath  of  the  feminist  spirit. 

II  ne  restoit  rien  d'entier  de  la  France, 
De  pur,  de  saint,  d'une  antique  bont6, 
Que  Marguerite,  humaine  deitfi.1 

And  now  what  more  is  to  be  said  ?  The  hateful  orgies  of 
the  16th  century  were  unchained  !  Here  and  there  m  the 
turmoil  some  few  feeble  shoots  of  platonism  continued  to 
appear2  under  the  form  of  preciosity  or  literary  feminism,  till 
we  come  to  the  hdtel  de  Rambouillet.3  Women  of  energy 
and  activity  were  still  seen.  But  fate  willed  that  the  17th 
century,  magnificent,  wholly  masculine,4  should  be  ushered 
in  with  terrible  convulsions.  It  was  a  momentous  and 
appalling  epoch,  and  bore  out  the  prediction  of  the 
Heptameron :  "The  best  things  are  those  from  which, 
when  abused,  result  the  worst  ills."6  What  a  spectacle 
is  the  court  of  the  Valois  !6 — all  these  sly,  knowing  women, 
talking  in  a  way  to  make  the  shades  of  their  grand- 
mothers blush,  running  after  men  who  wish  them  further ! 
How  little  the  third  Margaret  of  France,  the  first  wife 
of  Henri  IV.,  resembles  her  earlier  namesakes !  She  was 
as  highly  gifted,  prettier,  as  accomplished,  as  witty,  as 
fascinating,  as  noble,  as  thoroughly  a  princess — so  princely 
indeed  that  she  thought  herself  quite  entitled  to  love  gipsies 
and  let  prejudices  go  hang  !  Fair  as  a  lily,  too,  polished, 
wonderfully  polished,  bathed  and  perfumed !  All  she  saw 
was  that  platonic  love  had  broken  down,  and  of  the  other 

1  [Nothing  remained  in  all  the  realm  of  France 
Holy  and  pure,  of  antique  charity, 
Save  Margaret,  a  human  deity.] 

3  The  16th  century  was  the  golden  age  of  women's  education. 

8[The  hotel  de  Rambouillet  was  the  famous  salon  held  by  the  marquise  de 
Rambouillet,  where  met  a  crowd  of  wits,  fops,  and  scholars,  to  set  fashions 
for  society  and  for  literature.  This  was  the  headquarters  of  the  Prurituses, 
who  were  anxious  to  polish  the  language,  and  who  introduced,  among  forms 
of  expression  which  time  has  approved,  absurd  affectations  like  the 
Euphuism  of  the  previous  century  in  England.] 

4  When  women  were  not  supposed  to  be  able  to  do  more  than  "  distinguish 
a  doublet  from  trunk -hose."  [A  quotation  from  Moliere's  Lea  Femmet 
savantes,  Act  ii.  sc.  vii.] 

6  Tale  ii.,  "  Corruptio  optimi  pessima." 

• "  Venus  has  caught  the  ladies  in  her  toils,  and  God  is  tired ! " 
(Montaiglon).     Tavannes  asks  that  someone  will  shut  women's  mouths. 


CONCLUSION  487 

love  she  said :  *  Nothing  could  be  so  sweet,  if  it  were  not  so 
short." 

Even  in  Spain  platonism  perished,  or  rather  it  winged 
its  flight  towards  God  with  zest  and  ardour,  often  worthy  of 
the  Song  of  Songs:1  "A  love  redeemed  from  all  terrestrial 
things,  and  having  only  God  for  its  object,"  exclaims  St. 
Theresa,  "is  like  an  arrow  shot  by  man's  will  towards  his  God 
with  all  the  force  of  which  he  is  capable."  Or  else  it  was 
flung  out  of  window.  When  the  cook  and  the  niece  of  Don 
Quixote  make  a  bonfire  of  the  Amadis  romances  and  other 
illustrious  annals  of  pure  love  and  valiant  exploits,  the  good 
Spanish  curate,  who  assists  at  the  auto-da-fe,  momentarily 
hesitates  before  a  volume  bearing  the  name  of  Ariosto.  He 
opens  it,  to  burn  it  if  it  is  a  Spanish  translation,  to  kiss  it  if 
it  is  the  Italian  text.    O  relic  of  old  Spain !    O  son  of  the  Cid ! 

In  Italy  the  crisis  could  not  take  a  tragic  development,  as 
in  Germany,  but  men  felt  the  need  of  returning  to  anonymity, 
to  placid  affection,  to  love  without  any  twaddle.  "  The 
learned  are  so  mad  after  love,"  writes  Nelli,  "  they  have  so 
pounded  and  minced  and  dissected  it,  that  it  is  altered 
out  of  all  knowing."  Petrarch  was  blasphemed :  everyone 
was  eager  to  revile  him  as  a  flashy  rhetorician,  to  sneer  at 
his  so-called  purity.  They  declared  that  they  preferred 
to  the  sighs  of  love-sick  princesses  and  the  sentimental 
romances,  the  bold,  frank  love  of  a  coster- wench. 

Farewell  to  the  dream  !  It  dissolved  in  a  religious  crisis. 
Rome  herself  recovered  from  her  intoxication,  and  no 
longer  existed  as  the  nursery  of  sentimental  philosophy 
and  the  liberal-minded  instructress  of  mankind. 

La  paix  et  le  bon  tempa  ne  rkgnent  plus  icy  ; 
La  musique  et  le  bal  sont  contraints  de  s'y  taire.* 

Attacked,  Catholicism  had  stood  to  the  defence  in  the 
armour  of  authority.  It  was  fighting  for  life,  and  was  bent 
only  on  self-discipline  and  purification.  One  good  soul 
devoted  himself  to  the  task  of  spiritualising  the  writings 
of  Bembo. 

1  St.  Theresa  goes  to  these  words  from  the  Song  of  Songs  :  "  The  milk  of 
thy  breasts  is  Bweeter  than  wine,  and  from  them  riseth  a  savour  more 
excellent  than  precious  ointments  " ;  or  to  these:  "I  sat  down  under  bis 
shadow  with  great  delight,  and  his  fruit  was  sweet  to  my  taste." 

9  Peace  and  joy  in  living  rei^n  no  longer  here  ; 
Music  and  the  dance  to  silence  are  constrained. 


488      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

The  tender  imaginings  of  art  disappeared.  The  time 
was  coming  for  art  itself  to  return  to  scenes  of  domestic 
commonplace,  as  in  Holland,  or  of  pure  reason,  as  in  France. 
The  sole  impression  Brantome  received  as  he  viewed  the 
Coliseum  was  that  its  ruined  condition  was  most  strikingly 
apparent  at  the  top — as  was  seen  also  with  women. 

The  mortification  would  have  been  less  acute  if  people 
had  not  really  expected  to  find  happiness,  and  if  they  had 
begun  by  looking  painful  realities  square  in  the  face  as  they 
did  afterwards.  The  17th  century  left  philosophy  to  the 
philosophers;  it  believed  in  suffering  as  a  gift  of  God: 
rascal  coldly  investigated  only  the  secret  of  the  anxieties 
which  hold  us  by  the  throat ;  and  so  that  admirable  time  of 
vigorous  action  and  patient  endurance  led  us  to  philosophy. 

Platonist  tenderness  resulted  in  nihilism.  And  then  how 
sad  a  spectacle  was  the  spiritual  Sahara !  And  how  well 
men  understood,  as  soon  as  women  had  disappeared,  that 
they  were  right  in  believing  them  necessary!  Our  great 
Montaigne,  who  arises  at  this  moment,  is  a  splendid 
eulogist  of  the  cold  and  colourless  in  life.  He  is  the  perfect 
son  of  this  respectable  land  of  France,  where  wisdom  con- 
sists in  settling  down  in  a  benevolent  neutrality,  without 
hating,  and  without  loving:  life  being  such,  without  re- 
straints, without  illusions,  nothing  is  left,  surely,  but  to  die. 

Montaigne,  in  his  cool,  common-sense  way,  delights  in 
making  mincemeat  of  everything  that  has  given  women 
faith  and  enthusiasm  and  an  object  in  life. 

The  heart !  what  a  dangerous  organ,  essentially  a  thing  to 
keep  under  restraint !     Better  forgive  a  foil}7  than  a  victory ! 

Love !  After  having  distilled  out  its  quintessence,  after 
having  discovered  "three,  four,  or  five  degrees  of  superior 
things  "  external  to  ourselves  capable  of  producing  it,  is  it 
not  found  that  wisdom  lies  in  looking  after  one's  own 
interests,  in  loving  as  little  as  possible,  in  loving  one's 
children  perhaps,  but  even  then  with  sufficient  tranquillity 
"  to  live  comfortably  after  their  loss  "  ? 

Goodness ! — that  does  not  exist  in  the  pure  state,  but 
contains  always  some  taint  of  corruption,  a  savour  of 
mortality,  which  Plato  should  have  discerned :  "  Man  is  but 
patchwork  and  motley." 

The  quest  for  the  Beautiful !  How  conventional !  Let 
us  hear  no  more  of  Bembo  or  Equicola !     "  When  I  write 


CONCLUSION  489 

I   do   very  well  without   the   company  and   the  stay  of 
books!" 

Fame !  A  mere  bubble,  at  the  mercy  of  every  puff  of  wind, 
dissolving  under  our  own  eyes,  ere  we  reach  the  grave! 
Fame ! — for  books  or  ideas  which  are  fated  to  disappear 
as  everything  has  disappeared ! — a  name  which  changes 
and  will  pass  to  others  ! 

The  charm  of  original  thought !  Ah !  the  ridiculous 
pretension  of  wishing  to  transcend  the  current  opinions, 
the  common  sense  of  one's  fellows,  and  to  fancy  oneself 
"capable  of  all  things."  It  is  on  this  head  that  we 
must  hear  Montaigne ;  he  has  no  more  illusions  about  the 
mind  than  about  the  heart:  he  warms  up,  and  celebrates 
in  Shakespearian  accents  the  immensity  of  the  human  void. 

And  is  he  wrong  when  he  tells  us  that  we  are  our  own 
deceivers  ? — that  we  are  unwilling  to  confess  our  ignorance 
lest  we  scare  our  children  ?  "  Overmuch  knowledge  is 
harmful,  as  in  virtue.  Keep  in  all  points  to  the  common 
highway  :  'tis  not  good  to  be  so  subtle  and  nice.  .  .  .  Shun 
all  novelty  and  oddity.  .  .  .  All  extravagant  ways  vex 
me.  ...  In  my  time,  those  who  have  some  rare  excellence 
beyond  others,  and  some  extraordinary  sprightliness  of 
mind,  we  see  as  it  were  overflowing  into  license  in  opinion 
and  morals.  .  .  .  We  are  right  to  set  upon  the  human 
mind  the  rigidest  barriers  we  can." 1 

The  traitor !  How  he  laughs  at  himself  and  his  friends ! 
At  bottom  he  is  a  son  of  women2  and  of  love,  but  he  has 
lost  women  and  love.  The  shallow  epicurism  with  which 
his  doctrine  may  be  reproached  is  also  the  weak  side  of 
feminism,  which  had  already  shown  us  the  madness  and 
error  of  the  idea  of  saddling  the  few  years  we  have  to 

1  Cf.  the  following  well-known  passage  from  the  Apology  of  Raymond  de 
Sebonde  ( Essays,  ii.  cap.  xii.):  "The  soul,  by  reason  of  her  trouble  and 
imbecility,  as  unable  to  subsist  of  herself,  is  ever  and  in  all  places  questing 
and  searching  comforts,  hopes,  foundations,  and  foreign  circumstances  on 
which  she  may  take  hold  and  settle  herself.  And  how  light  and  fantastical 
soever  his  invention  doth  frame  them  unto  him,  he  notwithstanding  relieth 
more  surely  upon  them,  and  more  willingly,  than  upon  himself.  ...  It 
is  for  the  punishment  of  our  temerity,  and  instruction  of  our  misery  and 
incapacity,  that  God  caused  the  trouble,  downfall,  and  confusion  of  Babel's 
tower.  Whatsoever  we  attempt  without  his  assistance,  whatever  we  see 
without  the  lamp  of  his  grace,  is  but  vanity  and  folly.  With  our  weak- 
ness we  corrupt  and  adulterate  the  very  essence  of  truth  (which  is  uniform 
and  constant)  when  fortune  giveth  us  the  possession  of  it."     [Florio.] 

•"Nam  vere  sumus  omnes  de  muliere"  (Facetus). 


490      THE   WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

spend  on  earth  with  fatigue,  tribulation,  vanitiea  And 
yet,  while  inheriting  this  need  for  living  the  easy  impres- 
sionist life,  Montaigne  revolts  with  characteristic  feeling 
and  vigour  against  women,  because  he  belongs  to  a  dis- 
illusioned generation  which  feels  constrained  to  wreak 
personal  vengeance  against  those  who  had  been  confounding 
the  religion  of  beauty  with  the  religion  of  happiness. 
Religion  consists  in  resignation  to  unhappiness,  while 
beauty  and  happiness  are  in  truth  somewhat  loosely  con- 
nected. The  keeper  of  a  museum  who  spends  his  life  among 
masterpieces  will  acknowledge,  if  you  put  it  to  him,  that 
one  can  be  very  unhappy  there.  Further,  perched  in  his 
rustic  turret,  between  his  few  books  and  a  large  farm- 
yard, Montaigne  is  one  of  those  peaceable  and  self-satisfied 
country  folk  who  have  not  succeeded  in  understanding 
what  all  the  pother  is  about,  or  how  women  could  ever  pass 
for  priests  or  physicians.  He  considers  them  as  objects 
serviceable,  even  necessary,  to  men,  but  socially  speaking 
he  chants  their  De  Profundis. 

His  bile  is  moved  at  the  sight  of  the  grand  duchess 
taking  the  head  of  the  table  in  the  ducal  palace  at  Florence. 
What  a  rage  he  flies  into !  "  She  has  wheedled  the  prince"  ; 
is  it  by  "her  pleasant  and  commanding  features,"  or  her 
beautiful  bosom  ?  Don't  talk  to  him  of  the  ideal.  Take  a 
peep  into  this  dressing-room — rouge-pots,  false  teeth, 
second-hand  lures,  perfumes  like  musk  derived  from  the 
"  discharge  of  animals,"  and  all  the  rest :  this  is  the  ideal, 
forsooth,  you  think  of  making  the  axis  of  life !  To  him 
(the  phrase  will  serve,  it  is  homely  but  exact)  platonism  is 
the  art  of  palming  off  paste  for  diamonds. 

Yet  the  same  scoffer  Montaigne  has  for  aide-de-camp  a 
simple  maiden,  Mademoiselle  de  Gournay;  and,  after  all,  his 
whole  system  comes  to  this — that  we  should  do  well  to  be 
women,  nay  children  ;  and  that  the  best  thing  for  us  would 
be  to  live  like  the  bird  on  the  bough,  with  no  other  care 
than  the  due  round  of  the  seasons. 

But  no :  this  is  an  impossibility !  There  are  no  seasons 
for  us,  we  have  no  right  to  expect  seasons !  or  rather,  we 
have  only  a  summer, — life;  only  a  winter, — death!  And 
this  winter  lies  hungrily  in  wait  for  us !  It  comes  to  this — 
that  the  science  of  life  is  the  science  of  death  !  *  The  con- 
tinual work  of  our  life  is  to  build  up  death."    Since  there  is 


CONCLUSION  491 

neither  beauty  nor  love,  in  other  words  no  life,  we  are  but 
animated  corpses :  our  life  plunges  into  the  stream  of  death, 
emerges,  and  disappears  again;  we  live  on  death  as  a 
tulip  lives  in  its  water,  or  corn  in  its  refuse.  Then, 
like  the  tulip  and  the  corn,  we  go  through  the  inverse  pro- 
cess :  "  Your  death  is  part  of  the  order  of  the  universe,  a 
piece  of  the  life  of  the  world."  From  your  disintegrated 
flesh  the  vital  energy  will  spring  up  and  pass  into  the 
larva,  into  the  sap  of  plants,  to  die  yet  again  and  nourish 
afresh  the  butterfly  or  the  bird  or  the  ox,  continuing 
thus  its  endless  transmigrations.  Without  hailing  death 
as  it  passes,  like  the  mystics,  Montaigne  is  continually 
brooding  upon  it,  and  holds  it  "in  particular  affection," 
since  that  is  the  only  sure  conclusion  and  all  the  rest  is 
chimera.  Wherever  he  goes,  a  grinning  spectre  seems  to  go 
before  to  show  him  the  way.  Of  what  account  are  the 
fashionable  quintessences  beside  the  clear  and  insistent 
spectacle  of  a  bed  "  surrounded  by  physicians  and  parsons, 
by  creatures  all  mazed  and  quaking,  by  pale-faced  lackeys 
.  .  .  and  the  room  without  daylight,  the  candles  lit ! "  It  is 
just  that!  And  "the  leap  to  be  made  with  lowered  head 
and  dazed  brain  .  .  .  into  a  depth  of  silence  and  obscurity  !" 
Yes,  that  is  death,  as  said  (merely  adding  a  word  of  immor- 
tality and  hope)  those  humble  monks  of  the  early  days  of 
the  century,  so  violently  excluded  from  philosophic  religion ; 
men  had  stopped  up  their  ears  so  as  not  to  hear  them,  and 
yet  now  return  soberly  to  their  scheme  of  morality,  which 
grips  one  round  like  a  ring  of  iron!  What  does  Menot  say? — 
"  We  die  all  of  us,  and  like  water  sink  into  the  earth  and 
return  no  more  to  the  surface.  Yea,  Lord,  we  all  step  on 
towards  death.  The  water  of  the  Loire  ceases  not  to  flow, 
but  is  it  the  water  of  yestereve  that  passes  under  the  bridge 
to-day  ?  The  folk  who  to-day  dwell  in  this  town  were  not 
here  a  hundred  years  ago.  Now,  I  am  here  ;  next  year  you 
will  have  another  preacher.  Where  is  king  Louis,  but  late 
so  dread  a  monarch,  and  king  Charles,  who  in  the  flower  of 
his  youth  set  Italy  aquake  ?  Alas !  the  earth  has  already 
rotted  his  corpse.  Where  are  all  these  damsels  of  whom  we 
have  heard  so  much  ?  Have  you  not  the  Romance  of  the 
Rose,  and  Melusina,  and  many  another  far-famed  beauty  ? 
Behold,  we  all  die,  and  like  the  water  we  enter  into  the 
earth,  to  return  no  more  for  ever." 


492      THE   WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Montaigne  is  right.  Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  we  have 
to  live  in  contact  with  the  enemy,  that  is,  with  reality. 
Only,  is  it  absolutely  necessary  to  look  at  reality  so  mistrust- 
fully, and  to  ask  of  it  but  gloomy  impressions?  All  the 
enemies  of  faith  maintain  that  faith  cannot  but  be  sombre 
and  melancholy ;  in  making  itself  pleasant  and  speaking  of 
a  God  of  Love,  religion,  it  seems,  would  lie  and  do  them 
wrong,  would  trench  on  their  domain,  would  go  beyond  its 
part,  which  consists  in  expiation  and  sacrifice.  Material 
joy — that  is  their  creed ;  and  at  the  same  time  they  believe 
it  is  a  great  mistake  to  wish  to  rule  the  world  by  love ; 
men  are  not  held  by  spiritual  systems ;  you  buy  them, 
crush  them,  oppress  and  coerce  them. 

Nevertheless,  all  was  not  false  in  the  delicious  dream  of 
prelates,  women,  platonists.  Pure  love  is  too  exquisite  a 
thing  ever  to  exist  in  this  world.  But  it  is  the  business  of 
women  to  strive  towards  it,  and  to  show  that  we  have  need 
of  it.  The  idea  of  dividing  the  world,  of  leaving  bodies  to 
men  and  souls  to  women,  had  something  to  be  said  in  its 
favour.  Men  are  sometimes  too  philosophical,  women  never 
philosophical  enough. 

The  convulsions  which  broke  out  every  time  men  wished 
to  turn  the  tables  on  women,  in  the  16th  century,  and  in  the 
18th,  are  not  sufficient  to  convince  us  that  the  unmitigated 
employment  of  force  is  the  ideal  of  politics.  What  human 
being  is  there,  even  with  all  the  sentiment  crushed  out  of 
him,  who  does  not  feel  an  unquenchable  thirst  for  happi- 
ness !  Nations  also  feel  this  thirst.  No,  it  cannot  be  said 
that  the  need  of  happiness  is  but  an  empty  dream  :  it  is  a 
real  need,  sincere,  imperious,  natural,  a  moral  and  physical 
need  which  takes  entire  possession  of  us,  in  which  all  things 
are  summed  up — this  need  in  which  we  live  and  die. 

We  live  and  die  in  it !  We  should  have  to  remain  always 
children,  or  strangely  to  shut  our  eyes,  not  to  see  falling 
around  us  the  victims  of  life's  ironies,  felled  by  Mon- 
taigne's philosophy  as  surely,  as  clearly,  as  by  a  dagger- 
thrust. 

A  proverb  says  that  one  does  not  die  of  love :  perhaps ; 
but  what  we  know  with  absolute  certainty,  what  stares  us 
everywhere  in  the  face  in  letters  of  fire  and  blood,  is  that 
one  dies  of  the  absence  of  love,  one  dies  of  inanition. 

Hence   it   will   always   be   necessary  to  ascend  to   the 


CONCLUSION  493 

source  of  life,  to  fix  ourselves  firmly  at  the  fountain- 
head:  in  other  words,  to  nourish  ourselves  on  beauty. 
Philosophically,  "beauty"  and  "life"  are  synonymous 
terms ;  so  we  have  already  said,  and  we  shall  not  cease  to 
revert  to  this  thought,  because  it  appears  to  us  clear  and 
salutary.  All  the  possible  definitions  of  beauty  apply  also 
to  life ;  life  and  beauty  are  one  and  the  same  thing. 

Beauty  and  life  generate  love  and  are  themselves  born  of 
love,  so  that  love  does  no  more  than  forge  links  in  the 
immeasurable  chain  of  life  and  beauty.  And  what  men 
call  happiness  is  the  perfect  joy  of  life. 

Why  did  they  fail  in  their  schemes  of  love  and  peace — 
these  timid  women  of  the  16th  century,  who  had  all  that 
was  necessary  for  success — a  heart,  boundless,  bottomless 
ocean  of  kindliness;  an  admirable  intelligence;  and  in  many 
cases  knowledge,  beauty,  wealth  ?  They  lacked  the  courage 
to  be  themselves ;  they  were  wanting  in  passion.  Instead  of 
taking  their  rightful  place  they  fell  back  into  obedience, — 
half-hearted  dilettanti,  caught  in  their  own  snares.     Why  ? 

Medieval  Christianity  was  not  hostile  to  the  idea  of  the 
beautiful,  but  it  had  unduly  neglected  it,  for  the  purely 
scholastic  and  traditional  reason  that,  strictly  speaking, 
no  theory  of  the  beautiful  is  to  be  found  in  the  Gospels. 

No,  you  will  not  find  a  theory  of  the  beautiful  there. 
But  the  Renaissance  unquestionably  was  right  in  saying 
that  you  find  assurances  of  life.  And  how  many  assurances 
of  love  ?  Christianity  is  of  hope  and  love  all  compact. 
Love  speaks  on  every  page  of  its  early  lessons,  and  at 
every  moment  of  its  history.  The  Magdalene,  St.  Augustine, 
and  many  another — have  they  not  marked  stages  on  the 
road  to  heaven  ?  St.  Francis  of  Sales,  Fenelon — were  they 
not  yet  to  cheer  by  affection  the  victims  of  pure  reason? 

The  Renaissance,  then,  accomplished  a  very  great  advance 
when,  with  Plato's  aid,  it  instituted  the  religion  of  beauty, 
and  in  this  respect  we  certainly  cannot  reproach  the  plato- 
nists  of  the  16th  century  with  having  followed  a  wrong  bent. 
They  were  right  to  believe  that  happiness  and  peace  can 
only  be  effectually  secured  if  men  can  be  induced  to  turn 
their  eyes  towards  the  beautiful,  to  adopt  beauty  as  the 
beacon  of  their  lives,  to  believe  through  love,  act  through 
love,  live  through  love.  That,  in  truth,  is  the  common 
substance  underlying  both  Christianity  and  platonism. 


494      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

But  how  then  are  we  to  explain  the  phenomenon  we 
have  noted  ? 

Plato,  so  far  as  theory  and  literary  style  are  concerned, 
is  admirable ;  why  does  his  teaching  end  in  negative 
results  whenever  it  is  enforced  ?  Why  could  he  himself 
deduce  from  it  only  a  sociology  embroidered  with  Utopian 
dreams  ?  Why  are  those  who  live  familiarly  with  him  and 
upon  him  tortured  by  the  consciousness  of  the  emptiness 
of  things,  as  was  seen  in  the  16th  century,  and  as  we  may 
see  still  ? 

The  platonism  of  the  Renaissance  had  a  strange  fate.  It 
found  a  society  in  the  plenitude  of  vigour,  and  save  for 
a  few  elect  souls  it  left  it  dead.  As  a  philosophy,  it  resulted 
in  perfect  scepticism;  as  a  social  panacea,  in  the  wars  oi 
religion.  It  slew  art,  it  slew  literature  through  the  idea 
of  seeking  beauty  in  itself,  in  other  words,  by  academism, 
by  art  for  art's  sake :  the  aesthetic  Utopia  alongside  of  the 
philosophic  Utopia !  Still  further,  in  place  of  the  exquisite, 
enthusiastic,  ardent,  adorable  women  who  were  the  queens 
of  the  world,  it  gave  us,  as  time  went  on,  women  without 
energy,  without  activity,  case-hardened  with  the  idea  of 
a  selfish  happiness ;  it  left  behind  it  a  progeny  of  coquettes, 
prtfcieuses,  or  else  of  Delilahs  and  sensual  women.  The 
woman  of  vigorous  and  irradiant  affection,  the  woman 
who  used  to  shed  life  and  happiness  around  her,  has 
disappeared.  And,  finally,  we  observe  that  at  the  very 
moment  of  Plato's  greatest  glory,  few  women  steadfastly 
pursued  the  path  of  happiness :  with  some,  goodness  had 
disappeared  in  feebleness,  with  others  intelligence  had 
evaporated  in  reasoning.  They  ought  to  have  saved  us 
from  sensualism  and  metaphysics,  and  they  ran  aground 
on  both  reefs.  How  bitterly  they  have  been  reproached ! 
We  have  done  them  the  high  honour  of  throwing  upon  them 
and  their  ideas  the  blame  of  all  our  calamities,  as  though 
they  were  exclusively  at  fault.  As  if  it  would  not  have 
been  allowable,  after  all,  to  combine  common  sense  with  the 
spirit  of  kindliness  and  love ! 

If  there  were,  then  as  always,  silly  women,  profligate 
women,  insatiate  cormorants,  why  take  platonism  to  task, 
why  blame  women  alone  ? 

Certain  personages  of  that  time,  and  some  of  the  most 
notable,  refused   to  admit  any   division  of  responsibility 


CONCLUSION  495 

To  them,  all  that  had  happened  was  bound  to  happen ;  the 
origin  was  patent,  the  year  1515 ;  when  women  of  high 
rank,  admitted  to  court,  determined  to  devote  themselves 
personally  to  the  apostolic  mission  of  love,  all  France 
took  the  cue,  so  that  the  idea  of  love,  which  issued  to  begin 
with  from  a  source  insufficiently  philosophic,  as  it  flowed 
downwards  gained  nothing  and  became  no  purer.  It  is 
very  curious  to  find  this  line  of  argument  proceeding  from 
Brant6me's  pen ;  he  is  not  generally  a  preacher  of  virtue, 
and  has  indeed  enunciated  this  eminently  courtier-like 
maxim :  "  The  cast-offs  of  great  kings  could  not  but  be 
excellent."  According  to  Brantome  and  his  friends,  men 
had  undergone  an  irresistible  infatuation  for  which  they 
were  not  to  be  blamed :  thus,  he  says,  no  one  would  regard 
Francis  I.  as  a  Heliogabalus  or  accuse  him  of  having 
employed  violence :  he  was  a  victim.  All  men  are  victims. 
It  is  very  true  that  the  frightful  demoralisation  of  the  16th 
century  sprang  from  the  court,  which  set  the  example  and 
persistently  dragged  the  nation  after  it.  But  we  shall  be 
permitted  to  think  that  Francis  I.  and  the  other  victims 
among  his  circle,  without  being  Heliogabaluses,  were  not 
anchorites  either;  which  is  capable  of  demonstration.  In 
any  case,  it  seems  to  us  very  difficult  to  characterise  the 
doings  of  the  court  as  platonic  :  platonism,  on  the  contrary, 
was  a  barrier,  and  the  only  reproach  we  can  bring  against 
it  is  that  it  was  often  leaped. 

But  the  real  question  is  not  to  know  whether  there  were 
women  of  average  or  cheap  virtue  at  the  court  of  France, 
and  whether  they  gave  the  tone  to  others.  We  want  to 
know  whether  women  like  Anne  of  France,  Vittoria  Colonna, 
Margaret  of  France,  Margaret  of  Savoy,  and  their  likes  were 
wrong  to  strive  after  high  ideals,  and  whether  they  did 
what  was  necessary  to  succeed.  This  question  is  much 
more  delicate  than  the  first,  because  it  really  touches 
platonism  and  shows  how  it  came  to  grief. 

Women  can  be  reclaimed  from  sensualism ;  their  neces- 
sarily refined  feelings,  the  passive  part  they  play,  the 
disparity  between  the  advantage  and  the  disadvantage, 
conduce  easily  to  disgust.  But  they  never  revert  from 
mysticism  to  love.  The  Gospels  mention  no  Jewesses 
converted  by  mysticism,  whilst  the  Magdalene,  the  Woman 
of  Samaria,  the  Woman  taken  in  Adultery,  see  Heaven'?. 


496      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

light  while  in  the  full  flush  of  sensualism.  Men,  on  the 
contrary,  often  get  the  better  of  mysticism,  because  their 
instincts  scarcely  lie  that  way,  and  moreover  the  throng  and 
press  of  realities  only  too  easily  brings  them  down  to  earth. 

Now,  Plato,  even  when  rendered  practical  by  the  theory 
of  two  loves,  which  sanctioned  curious  concessions,  repre- 
sented the  algebra  of  the  beautiful ;  but  you  cannot  make 
algebra  your  daily  bread. 

Women  of  the  highest  distinction,  and  especially  those  we 
have  named,  lived  with  Plato  as  it  were  in  a  balloon :  there 
was  no  more  actual  communication  with  the  world,  no  more 
really  practical  energy,  no  more  heat  and  flame !  The  rope 
was  cut;  they  were  adrift  in  the  clear  and  rarefied 
atmosphere  of  an  altitude  of  thousands  of  feet.  What  an 
illusion,  and  how  disastrous !  Instead  of  elevating  the  world, 
this  was  the  very  means  of  abandoning  it  to  itself.  How 
many  strange  visions  this  dizzy  height  brought  before  their 
eyes! 

First,  the  idea  of  living  face  to  face  with  the  absolute,  and 
of  importing  the  absolute  into  life — pride  of  thought  of  the 
vainest  kind !  To  adopt  St.  Augustine's  figure,  you  might 
as  well  shut  up  the  ocean  in  a  hole  in  the  sand !  As  De 
Musset  said:  "My  glass  is  small,  but  from  my  glass  I 
drink."  The  realms  of  space  do  not  furnish  a  substantial 
love,  and  it  is  vexatious  enough  to  leave  that  love  grovel- 
ling on  the  earth. 

Secondly,  along  with  this  supramundane  mysticism, 
platonism  developed  the  exclusive  contemplation  of  self, 
another  deplorable  mistake.  We  live  in  virtue  of  a  con- 
tinual exchange,  as  physiological  and  moral  laws  equally 
prove.  God  alone  can  rejoice  in  perfect  independence  of  life 
and  happiness ;  the  condition  of  us  men  is  to  be  happy 
through  give  and  take  ;  we  have  to  receive  everything,  but 
also  to  give  everything.  To  search  for  happiness  within 
oneself  allows  no  room  for  enthusiasm  or  an  enlarged  current 
of  life,  nor,  consequently,  for  life  itself:  one  withers  up  like 
a  tree  which  should  forbid  its  roots  to  imbibe  moisture  from 
the  soil,  its  branches  to  breathe. 

The  poor  dear  women,  once  isolated  in  the  boundless  tracts 
of  their  imagination,  became  giddy,  fell  a  prey  to  needless 
torments,  lost  the  precious  gift  of  simplicity,  which  was  so 
natural  to  them  in   their   capacity  as  great  ladies — that 


CONCLUSION  497 

excellent  and  wise  simplicity  of  mind  which  assigns  us  our 
place  in  the  vast  sequence  of  things,  according  to  the  will  of 
God.  They  hovered  too  far  out  of  touch  with  realities, 
they  generalised,  wished  to  grasp  too  much,  they  grew  rest- 
less and  uneasy,  which  rendered  them  a  prey  to  intriguers : 
their  sensibility  had  no  ballast.  To  influence  humanity, 
they  had  first  to  influence  the  human  beings  they  had  at 
hand.  So  long  as  their  mission  remained  individual, 
private,  concrete,  intimate,  it  produced  satisfactory  results. 
How  many  men  did  they  carry  up  with  them  into  the 
heights  !  But  when  they  wanted  to  act  upon  mankind  at 
large,  the  game  was  up.  Trying  to  influence  everybody, 
they  ended  by  influencing  nobody.  Thus  Vittoria  Colonna 
gave  to  her  beloved  Michelangelo  forces  which  he  turned  to 
admirable  account;  but  in  her  abstract  efforts  towards 
public  regeneration  she  completely  failed. 

Let  us  add  that  Frenchwomen  had  a  much  more  difficult 
mission  to  fulfil  than  the  Italian  women.  Spell-bound  by 
the  example  of  Italy,  they  fancied  that  what  had  succeeded 
there  was  sure  to  succeed  here,  and  they  did  not  even  see 
(so  great  was  their  taste  for  blind  imitation)  that  they  were 
behind  the  fair,  that  they  were  importing  among  us  the 
imitation  of  a  decadent  art,  the  imitation  of  an  imitation,  a 
counterfeit  love,  a  counterfeit  curiosity,  a  counterfeit  scheme 
of  life.  What  they  should  have  done  was  to  inspire  robust 
activities,  to  cause,  no  matter  whence  or  how,  a  gush  of 
ideas  beautiful,  striking,  original,  soul-stirring ;  instead,  they 
refined  and  subtilised  and  complicated,  they  wasted  their 
ingenuity  in  seeking  to  discover  which  was  the  more 
aesthetic,  poetry  or  painting ;  complication  seemed  to  them 
to  be  art,  and  not  the  apprentice  stage  of  art:  they  never 
attained  that  noble  logic  which  is  art  itself.  Truly  strong 
souls  know  well  that  you  cannot  nourish  the  world  on 
sweetstuffs  merely,  that  a  decided  will  is  needed  in 
life,  and  that  the  beautiful  becomes  one  with  the  true  when 
truth  has  all  its  potency.  Happy  are  those  who  skilfully  draw 
love  from  truth ! — the  ploughman  who  loves  his  furrow,  the 
poor  man  who  loves  his  poverty,  the  maiden  who  loves  her 
purity !  We  find  among  women  many  valiant  souls  of  the 
stamp  of  Anne  of  France,  able  thus  to  lay  hold  of  life.  As 
to  those  who  allow  themselves  to  be  led  astray  by  the 
obsession  of  an  abstract  and  too  lofty  ideal,  they  die. 

2i 


498      THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Platonism,  then,  marked  a  great  advance  towards  the 
idea  of  beauty,  but  it  did  not  accomplish  any  striking 
progress  towards  the  idea  of  happiness,  and  Nifo  was  not 
far  wrong  in  predicting  that  the  doctrine  of  two  loves,  the 
one  celestial,  immaterial,  good,  and  desirable,  the  other 
terrestrial  and  carnal,  would  result  in  mere  negation,  by 
setting  men  between  impossible  alternatives — a  colloquy 
of  angels,  or,  as  M.  France  says,  a  colloquy  of  chim- 
panzees. We  may  regret  our  condition,  but  how  escape 
from  it  ?  Natural  law  (that  is,  divine  law)  bids  us  disdain 
none  of  the  gifts  of  God,  but  to  obtain  from  each  its 
particular  beauty.  Happiness  consists  really  in  loving 
what  we  have  round  about  us,  in  appropriating  therefrom 
all  that  is  beautiful  and  congenial,  and  in  affectionately  con- 
forming to  Nature  without  coercing  her,  so  as  to  nourish 
ourselves  upon  her  spiritual  and  physical  forces,  and 
to  assimilate  her  warmth  and  energy  and  her  universal 
harmony. 

In  our  own  day  John  Ruskin  has  been  one  of  the  apostles 
of  happiness  under  this  aspect,  and  though  his  doctrine  may 
be  difficult  to  define,  he  has  unquestionably  carried  the  idea 
of  platonism  a  stage  further,  in  harmony  with  the  saying 
of  Plato  which  we  have  already  quoted :  "  Those  who  know 
have  impressions." 

The  impressions  on  which  he  lived  were  often  incon- 
sistent, and  still  more  often  nebulous,  one  might  almost  say 
musical.  He  has  been  taunted  with  his  apparent  lack  of 
logic,  though  the  glitter  of  his  thought  by  its  very  brilliance 
often  conceals  a  logic  that  is  sufficiently  real.  But,  after 
all,  he  has  unduly  neglected  the  spiritual  side  of  Nature, 
in  particular  the  human  soul.  While  we  cannot  shut  our 
eyes  to  the  existence  of  the  body  and  the  utility  of  earthly 
possessions,  it  is  at  the  same  time  good  and  necessary  for 
happiness  to  keep  the  body  and  material  well-being  on  the 
lower  plane.  The  body  is  essentially  localised,  wealth  is 
limited,  and,  for  both,  giving  spells  exhaustion  ;  only  the 
soul  can  spend  itself  unceasingly,  and  grow  the  richer 
thereby.  And  thus  social  happiness  results,  so  to  speak, 
from  the  socialism  of  souls. 

Ruskin  belongs  to  the  old  Venetian  school,  materialistic, 
and  pagan ;  his  heart  has  echoed  to  physical  harmonies, 
and  to  him  a  certain  material  socialism  would  not  have 


CONCLUSION  499 

been  unpleasing.  Yet  he  has  well  shown  what  we  ought 
to  feel  in  our  communion  with  Nature,  he  has  glorified  the 
worship  of  beauty  and  happiness,  which  consists  in  guessing 
at  God,  in  seeing  Him,  in  acclaiming  Him  in  the  beauty  of 
mountains  as  in  the  beauty  of  a  heart  overflowing  with 
tenderness  and  love,  in  all  that  is  beautiful,  and  beautiful 
for  us.  His  essential  idea  is  that  everything  around  us 
produces  an  impression  upon  us,  and  that  we  ourselves 
have  a  duty  to  our  environment.  Gardens  are  no  longer  a 
mere  setting  of  life,  they  are  alive.  Ruskin  goes  so  far  as 
to  extol  the  idea  of  sacrificing  ourselves  for  posterity — to 
plant  forests  under  whose  shade  our  descendants  may  live, 
to  build  cities  in  which  future  nations  will  be  able  to  dwell. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  these  undulatory  but  noble  theories 
to  the  egoistic  enjoyment  of  oneself;  yet  it  is  very  certain 
that  to  carry  them  into  practice  in  reasonable  measure  is 
the  way  to  find  happiness. 

That  is  essentially  the  moral  system  which  women  ought 
to  teach — women  born  for  impressions,  for  devotion, 
generosity,  the  higher  life. 

Unhappily,  Ruskin,  little  conversant  with  love  and 
altogether  unacquainted  with  the  domestic  affections,  never 
showed  in  his  own  life  a  really  high  appreciation  of  women's 
role,  nor  has  he  less  misconstrued  it  from  the  theoretical 
standpoint.  Apart  from  some  sonorous  phrases  in  which  he 
recommends  them  to  be  queens,  but  in  submission  to  their 
husbands,  or  to  practise  good  social  economy  in  relation  to 
their  dressmakers,  it  may  be  said  that  he  did  not  under- 
stand the  charm  of  women,  and  that  he  felt  no  attraction 
for  their  particular  beauty.  When  he  speaks  of  beauty, 
whether  in  regard  to  modern  painters  or  to  the  Greeks,  it  is 
always  in  general  terms,  without  indicating  in  any  way 
whether  the  feminine  expression  of  the  beautiful  has  for 
him  a  special  signification.  In  his  enthusiasm  for  the 
aesthetics  of  the  Middle  Ages  he  even  admires  masculine 
beauty  above  all :  his  type  in  that  case  is  the  beauty  of 
a  stalwart  knight. 

M.  Bourget,  for  example,  has  more  clearly  conceived  and 
accurately  interpreted  the  necessity  of  harmony  with  Nature; 
his  sensations  or  sentiments  approximate  to  the  philosophy 
of  the  Renaissance,  and  reflect  the  spirit  of  penetrating 
sweetness  which  women  had  undertaken  to  develop. 


500      THE  WOMEN   OF  THE   RENAISSANCE 

"The  sincere  acceptance  of  the  inevitable,"  he  says, 
"  supposes  a  love  for  the  inevitable,  the  consciousness,  and 
not  merely  the  idea,  that  this  obscure  universe  has  a 
mysterious  and  kindly  signification.  In  the  depths  of 
our  sensibility  there  exists  an  indestructible  craving  that 
this  world  shall  contain  something  wherewith  to  satisfy  our 
heart,  since  this  heart  is  the  world's  own  child;  and  the 
pure  and  guileless  men  whose  ever  young  and  tender 
spirits  speak  to  us  across  the  ages — Francis  of  Assisi, 
Savonarola,  those  who  believed  in  this  bountiful  kindness 
of  the  universe,  as  they  breathed,  as  they  lived,  with  the 
whole  of  their  being — these  appear  to  us  in  a  state  of 
unanswerable  protest  against  the  nihilism  with  which  we 
are  stifled.  They  become  the  accomplices  in  us  of  a  faith 
that  is  hardly  conscious  of  itself,  and  sometimes  seeks  its 
way  with  tears.  'Thou  wouldst  not  seek  me,'  says  the 
Saviour  in  the  beautiful  Mystery  of  Jesus,  '  if  thou  hadst 
not  found  me.'  Is  this  phenomenon  far  from  that  other 
mysterious  one  which  true  believers  call  prayer  ? " 

We  can,  we  must  love  Nature,  because  God  has  placed 
her  all  about  us,  and  because  happiness  consists  in  living 
with  what  we  love.  We  love  things  that  are  not  ideally 
perfect,  in  other  words,  which  are  not  superlatively 
beautiful,  because  happiness  presents  itself  to  us  under  an 
essentially  relative  aspect,  and  because  there  is  no  one  but 
lays  claim  to  it.  It  is  not  even  a  question  of  loving 
beautiful  things,  then,  but,  as  we  said,  of  loving  what  is 
beautiful  in  things. 

In  real  life,  to  be  sure,  unpleasant  things  are  as  common 
as  blackberries,  while  pleasant  things  are  few  and  far 
between.  Nevertheless  the  truth  of  the  system  of  happiness 
through  love  is  proved  by  its  efficacy.  Just  as  the  pure 
platonist,  penetrated  by  his  glorious  ideal,  is  cold,  unprofit- 
able, and  unhappy,  the  man  who  loves  is  conscious  of  being 
filled  with  strength  and  light.  To  love  is  to  have  real  and 
ardent  emotions  instead  of  locking  oneself  in  the  icy  senti- 
mentalism  of  reasoning  or  of  false  mysticism;  it  is  to 
become  a  wellspring  of  sweetness,  kindliness,  activity,  a 
mainstay  of  the  world:  it  is  to  sow  life  with  flowers,  to 
bestow  happiness  and  to  possess  it.  Though  placed  by  birth 
in  a  refractory  medium,  Ruskin,  in  spite  of  his  insufficiencies, 
contradictions,  weaknesses,  lacunae,  has  exercised  a  pro- 


CONCLUSION  501 

found  influence,  while  the  platonism  of  Ficino  and  Bembo, 
in  a  land  of  high  sensibility,  amongst  incomparable  artists 
and  charming  women,  stifled  everything  and  throttled 
itself. 

There  are,  spread  over  the  world,  two  unequal  races  which, 
living  continually  side  by  side,  yet  never  understand  each 
other  and  never  blend — the  race  of  pride,  and  the  race  of 
vanity.  Pride  tends  to  enthusiasm  and  advancement;  it 
would  be  well  to  have  proud  women.  Unhappily  men,  no 
matter  who  they  are,  do  not  love  them,  but  much  prefer  the 
feeble  and  the  vain. 

Yet  the  efforts  of  the  Renaissance  women  have  not  been 
wholly  wasted.  Those  noble  women  sowed  for  the  future, 
and  the  germ  subsists. 

Nor  can  it  be  said  that  their  defeat  was  absolute.  To 
form  a  sound  judgment  on  the  question  we  should  have  to 
be  able  (failures  being  invariably  more  noticeable  than 
successes)  to  gauge  the  mysterious,  secret  operations  of 
their  grace;  to  number  the  despondent  men  cheered  by  a 
kind  word  or  a  glance  of  pity  or  affection ;  to  fathom  the 
resources,  in  truth  unfathomable,  possessed  by  the  spirit  of 
love  even  when  pure,  and  possessed  by  it  alone.  Women 
of  great  soul,  the  Vittoria  Colonnas  of  the  world,  have 
drawn  from  it  results  almost  miraculous  ;  and  many  others, 
without  turning  themselves  into  a  sort  of  celestial  dancing- 
mistresses,  or  becoming  lost  in  worthless  caprices,  have 
given  us  reason  to  hope  that,  what  with  labour  and 
earnestness  and  dignity,  the  end  of  their  usefulness  will  not 
be  seen  for  many  a  long  day. 

In  short,  they  took  the  lead  in  the  profoundest  revolution 
we  have  ever  experienced ;  from  Louis  XL  they  led  us  to 
the  boudoirs  of  the  18th  century. 

We  can  give  their  work  neither  unqualified  praise  nor 
condemnation.  But  we  can  praise  many  of  these  high- 
souled  women — praise  them  for  having  seen  and  followed 
their  star,  though  they  at  first  sight  may  not  have  recognised 
the  more  excellent  way.  With  all  our  reservations,  we  feel 
their  spell  upon  us,  because  they  were  interesting,  sincere, 
devoted,  eminently  tender,  eminently  feminine.  We  can 
commend  them  to  the  sympathy  of  those  many  ladies  of 
our  own  day  who,  as  we  know,  are  also  seeking  their 
path,  and  even  their  star. 


502      THE   WOMEN   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Some  of  my  readers  may  not  approve  of  this  conclusion : 
some  will  think  it  optimistic,  others  pessimistic:  in  such 
matters  contradiction  is  easy.  Will  they  allow  me  to  reply 
in  advance  that  such  criticisms  would  not  surprise  me  ? 
More  than  once  I  myself  have  recast  this  book,  now  in  the 
optimistic  direction,  now  in  the  pessimistic :  a  simple 
historian,  in  contact  with  subtle,  fleeting,  elusive  shades,  with 
women  I  sought  to  see  through ;  as  independent  as  a  man 
may  be,  in  presence  of  beauties  for  three  centuries  in  the 
grave,  when  he  is  grey  with  years,  sated  with  the  two  great 
spectacles  which,  according  to  Montaigne,  quiet  the  soul — 
the  sight  of  government,  the  sight  of  death, — I  would  ever 
and  anon  catch  myself  understanding  their  witchery,  en- 
thralled to  their  charm,  or  else  hating  their  charm,  unjustly; 
and  then,  at  the  moment  when  I  fancied  I  could  at  last 
write  my  veni,  vidi,  vici,  the  ideas  slipped  from  my  book 
like  water  through  a  sieve.  It  is  thus  I  have  acquired 
the  right  of  loving  these  dear  ghosts. 

And  now  adieu,  princesses,  cease  to  tempt  us  beyond  our 
powers  !  Only  continue  to  live  amongst  us  !  Our  age  is  very 
masculine,  your  spiritualism  pays  us  but  angel  visits  now ! 
— you  have  been  driven  in  a  thousand  ways  to  learn  what  a 
soulless  commercialism  is  like.  And  yet,  in  your  better, 
spiritual  part,  you  are  with  us  always.  We  have  lovable 
and  accomplished  women,  we  have  women  in  a  true  sense 
aristocratic,  whose  hearts  are  capable  of  enthusiasm  and 
heroic  charities  ;  there  have  been  some  whose  names  even  live 
after  them  as  synonyms  of  intelligence  and  goodness.  We 
have  our  Margarets  of  Savoy,  and,  in  goodly  numbers,  women 
whose  moral  bearing  surpasses  that  of  men ;  we  have  even 
women  of  energy,  and  also,  it  is  said,  of  tenderness.  The  day 
when  they  proudly  resume  the  motto  Non  inferiora  secutus, 
and  when  to  their  eminent  good  qualities  they  add  the  talent 
of  being  themselves,  the  will  to  speak  in  their  own  true 
accents  rather  than  a  borrowed  tongue,  they  will  give  us 
back  our  illusions,  and  with  them  what  was  not  illusion. 

Let  them  renounce  public  life !  But  let  them  take  com- 
plete possession  of  the  home  life.  Let  mannish  women,  if 
they  must,  turn  doctors,  and  womanish  women  turn 
priests !  Let  all  be  philosophers,  comforters,  ministers  of  love 
human  and  divine ;  let  them  work  through  love,  and  love 
through  love !     Let  them  have  what  we  lack,  let  them  excel 


CONCLUSION  503 

as,  enlighten  us,  encourage  us !  And  in  our  hearts  we  Latins 
shall  bless  them,  as  we  bless  the  sun.  Passion  is  a  warrant- 
royal  of  life. 

The  moral  of  our  book  is  that  good  women  should  love 
the  beautiful,  and  that  virtue  can  be  neither  tiresome  nor 
torpid. 

There  is  no  need  to  be  always  a  maiden  of  twelve.  True 
sweetness,  true  goodness,  true  love  come,  not  of  naivete'  or 
feebleness,  but  of  intelligence  and  personal  force. 


INDEX 


Accolti,  Bernardo,  itinerant  singer, 
273. 

age  of  marriage,  27,  28,  98. 

Agrippa,  Cornelius,  his  view  of  mar- 
riage, 21 ;  on  Louise  of  Savoy, 
166  n;  book  on  the  Pre-eminence  of 
the  Female  Sex,  400;  lectures  on 
Plato,  402. 

Alexander  VI.,  pope,  on  Urbino  mar- 
riage, 52;  his  hunting,  247;  on 
monks,  463. 

Alfonso  of  Aragon's  wedding,  40. 

Alfonso  of  Naples'  dinners,  231. 

Alione's  ballad,  121  n ;  anecdote  by, 
222. 

almsgiving,  66-69. 

Amadis  de  Oavle,  its  popularity,  269. 

Amaretta,  Costanza,  339,  340. 

•  amateurs,'  56,  264,  388. 

Amboise,  cardinal  of,  146,  257. 

Andrelini,  Fausto,  17,  326. 

Anet,  chateau  of  Diana  of  Poitiers, 
.387. 

animals,  platonist  attitude  towards, 
244. 

Anne  de  Graville  quoted,  198  n. 

Anne  of  Brittany,  145,  375. 

Anne  of  France,  her  first  lover,  26  n; 
as  sick  nurse,  54 ;  her  charity,  68; 
views  on  education,  85,  89-91 ;  on 
girls'  stories,  100-102;  'school  of 
manners,'  103;  on  maternal  self- 
sacrifice,  105;  on  mourning,  129, 
130,  133;  on  valour,  146;  on  love- 
making,  165  ;  her  character,  166- 
168;  idea  of  charm,  180,  181;  her 
platonism,  181;  compared  with 
Margaret,  197 ;  opinion  on  '  age  of 
wisdom,'  214  ;  on  dress,  216,  218 ; 
hunting,  252,  253;  books,  265; 
political  career,  313,  314 ;  love  of 
art,  375. 

Anne  of  Polignac,  13.' 


Anne  of  Vivonne,  885. 

architecture,  domestic,  224. 

Aretino,  on  tutors,  79, 80 ;  his  Mares- 
calco,  80,  281 ;  on  duchess  of 
Urbino,  351 ;  courtesans,  201,  358, 
361 ;  on  nudities,  204 ;  his  methods, 
370;  relations  with  Vittoria  Co- 
lonna,  390,  391;  correspondence, 
394,  395. 

art,  377,  380. 

Asolani,  Bembo's,  156,  432. 

Baden  in  Aargau,  259,  260. 

balls,  232,  236;  Daneau  on,  236,  237. 

baths,  254  ;  Calvinists'  view  of,  255, 
256 ;  life  at,  259,  260. 

Battista  Spagnuoli,  his  view  of 
marriage,  21 ;  of  baths,  258 ;  of 
monks,  460. 

beards,  dispute  on  growing  of,  370. 

Beatrice  d'Este,  see  D'Este. 

beauty,  platonist  idea  of,  158,  159, 
161;  Bembo's  idea  of,  160;  Michel- 
angelo's, 161 ;  distrusted,  196;  pre- 
servation of,  215. 

Bembo,  on  Latin  for  girls,  96;  his 
Asolani,  156,  432  ;  on  love,  159- 
161;  conversation,  294, 295 ;  hand- 
writing, 304;  his  Morosina,  366-368, 
390 ;  his  talk,  403,  404 ;  idea  of 
poetry,  404 ;  relations  with  Olympia 
Morata,  428;  letter  to  Isabella 
d'Este,  432. 

Beroaldo,  Filippo,  on  drunkenness, 
298 ;  on  love  and  Propertius,  402, 
403. 

Bibbiena  on  Catherine  Sforza,  29; 
his  Calandra,  79, 278, 279 ;  decora- 
tion of  his  bath-room,  256 ;  his 
letters,  307;  his  liberalism,  432; 
anecdote  of,  463. 

Bible,  reading  of,  155,  288,  438,  439. 

bibliennes,  the,  426,  435. 


INDEX 


505 


Billon,  481. 

Blando,  Michelangelo,  on  hunting, 
251,  252. 

blason8,  208. 

Boccaccio,  popularity  of,  100,  268, 
398. 

Bonaventare  des  P^riers,  see  Des 
P^riers. 

Boistuau,  480. 

Bonnivet,  admiral  de,  178,  213. 

books,  88,  263. 

Botticelli's  Venus  and  Cupid,  318. 

Bouchet,  Jean,  on  flirtation,  105, 
106 ;  remedy  for  materialism,  147 ; 
story  of  ladies  of  Poitiers,  288; 
Les  Segnar8  traversant  les  voies 
perUleuses,  392. 

Bourget,  Paul,  his  naturalism  con- 
trasted with  Buskin's,  499,  500. 

boutrimes,  300. 

boys'  education,  75,  76. 

Brandiolini,  Aurelio,  musician,  273. 

Brandt's  Ship  of  Fools,  416. 

Brantdme  on  tutors,  99,  on  marquis 
of  Pescara's  book,  124;  on  spicy 
literature,  266;  on  Mortemart 
ladies,  286 ;  on  the  court,  495. 

Brascha,  ambassador,  42,  43. 

Briconnet,  bishop  of  Meaux,  470. 

Bud£,  Guillaume,  Livre  de  VInstitu- 
tion  du  prince,  250,  251;  on  re- 
ligion, 454. 

burial  customs,  129. 

Burye,  character  in  Heptameron,  385. 

Calvin  on  women,  84,  467  ;  on 
divorce,  339;  character  of  Beforma- 
tion,  467. 

Calvinists,  objection  to  fine  wed- 
dings, 37 ;  to  baths,  255,  256. 

Cardan  on  marriage,  32;  on  gout, 
230 ;  on  talk,  285 ;  life  at  Venice, 
290  n. 

Carnesecchi,  259. 

carpet  knights,  369. 

Castelli,  Cardinal,  his  hunting  ode, 
248,  249. 

Castiglione,  relations  with  his  wife, 
61 ;  theory  of  social  aesthetics,  144 ; 
on  Baphael,  157;  on  intellectual 
occupations  for  women,  261 ;  his 
Courtier,  265,  395,  404,  405  » ;  on 
music,  274 ;  on  talk,  292 ;  on  duke 
of  Urbino,  293;  handwriting,  304; 
letters  to  Yittoria  Colonna,  306, 
895 ;  letter  to  Marchesa  Scaldasole, 


306 ;  on  viragos,  319 ;  on  painting, 
377,  381,  431. 

Cataneo,  on  two  loves,  156,  159. 

Catherine  de'  Medici,  see  De'  Medici. 

Catholicism  and  colour,  220;  rela- 
tion to  philosophy,  etc.,  456  ff. 

Caviceo,  his  Peregrino,  22,  239. 

Gdestine,  La,  270. 

Chailly,  Louis  XII.'s  hound,  249. 

Champier  on  marriage  age,  28 ;  Livre 
de.  vraye  amour,  45, 46 ;  on  doctors, 
59 ;  on  love,  114,  168 ;  on  women 
and  men,  301. 

charity,  66-69. 

charm,  theory  of,  195-200. 

chase,  the,  246-253. 

Christian  socialism,  142. 

churches,  mundane  use  of,  237-240. 

Church's  distrust  of  women,  422, 423. 

Cibo,  Caterina,  papaline,  428,  457. 

cicisbeo,  346,  347. 

classics,  respect  for,  143,  156,  157. 

clergy,  character  of,  165,  434-438. 

Clichtoue's  philosophy  of  life,  146, 
147. 

Clouet,  Jean,  207. 

college  education,  75,  76,  78. 

Collerye,  Boger,  quoted,  46  n,  115  n. 

Colonna,  Ascanio,  312. 

Colonna,  Pompeo,  his  Apologia  pro 
mulieribus  (ms.  in  M.  de  Maulde's 
possession),  399,  400. 

Colonna,  Vittoria,  age  of  betrothal, 
27;  widowhood,  131,  316,  317; 
relations  with  Michelangelo,  163, 
182,  183,  395  ;  on  painting,  182 ; 
relations  with  Carnesecchi,  259; 
letter  to  Paulo  Giovio,  292 ;  hand- 
writing, 304;  letters,  305-308,  450, 
451;  character,  316,  317,  328; 
relations  with  Aretino,  390,  391; 
with  Dolce,  394;  with  Bembo, 
394;  her  poetry,  163,  404,  405; 
religion,  428,  469;  relations  with 
Pole,  429 ;  her  prayer,  442 ;  rela- 
tions with  Ochino,  469,  470. 

colours,  219-221. 

complexions,  199. 

concubinage,  113,  363-366. 

Condivi  on  Michelangelo,  162,  182, 
183. 

Consentana,  countess  of,  anecdote  of, 
129. 

conversation,  284-302,  345,  347. 

coquetry,  187. 

Coquillart,  105,  325. 


506 


INDEX 


Correggio's  St.  Jerome,  449 ;  Mystic 

Marriage,  450. 
correspondence,  804-310. 
Costa,  Lorenzo,  picture  by,  276. 
country  life,  242,  243. 
country  squires,  64,  140. 
courtesans,  856-362. 
Courtier,  Castiglione's,  265, 395, 404. 
Cremonini,  152. 
Cymbalum,  Des  Penera',  886,  393. 

D'Albret,  Charlotte,  131. 
D'Albret,  Henri,  53,  334,  852. 
D'Amboise,  Catherine,  444. 
D'Amboise,  Francoise,  132. 
D'Amboise,  Michel,  206,  252. 
dancing,  233-237. 
Daneau  on  dancing  and  balls,  236, 

237. 
Dangu,  Nicolas,  384. 
Dante,  406. 
D'Aragona,  see  Tullia. 
De  Beaulieu,  Eustorg,  99. 
De  Bourbon,  Gabrielle,  expenditure, 

66 ;  lack  of  dowry,  117 ;  death  of 

her  son,  126 ;  religious  works,  443. 
De  Clermont,  Mile,  24,  385. 
De  Longray,  Mme,  385. 
De'  Medici,   Catherine,  her  'flying 

squadron,'  103. 
De'  Medici,  Julian,  205. 
De  Montause,  384. 
Des  Pdriers,  Bonaventure,  59,  886, 

887;  his  Cymbalum,  386,  393,  418. 
De  Pons,  315,  316. 
De  Soubise,  Madame,  315. 
Desprez,  Josquin,  275. 
D'Este,  Beatrice,  318. 
D'Este,  Isabella,  setter  of  fashions, 

219;  on  pilgrimage,  240;  love  of 

art,  374,  375. 
D'Etampes,  duchess,  364. 
dialogues,  156,  403. 
Diana  of  Poitiers,  as  widow,  131 ; 

her  portraits,  207,  211 ;  statue  of, 

by  Goujon,   208;    relations  with 

king,  364,  365 ;  love  of  art,  387. 
divorce,  127,  338,  339. 
doctors,  55-58. 
Dolce  on  misadventures  of  husbands, 

58;    on    education,   94,  95;    the 

moon,  423. 
domestic  letters,  117  n,  126,  304-310. 
dowries,  117-119. 
1  dragons,'  330,  331. 
drama,  278-283. 


dress,  216-223. 

drinking,  229,  230. 

Du  Bellay,  169  n,  362,  365,  408,  476, 

477,  479,  483,  484. 
Du  Four,  165. 
Durer's  women,  203. 
dwelling  house,  223,  224. 

eating,  customs  in,  229-231. 

education,  74-78,  86-100. 

Egnatius,  31. 

Eleanor,  wife  of  Francis  I.,  53. 

Equicola,  Di  natura  a" amort,  161. 

Erasmus,  on  virginity,  32 ;  on  mater- 
nity, 48 ;  education,  82,  97 ;  hus- 
bands, 116;  women's  stupidity, 
157  n ;  church  music,  277 ;  his 
attitude  to  reformers,  473. 

Estienne,  Henri,  84. 

Eustorg  de  Beaulieu,  99. 

eyes,  199. 

facdties,  266-268. 

Feo,  lover  of  Catherine  Sforza,  30,821. 

Ferrara,  music  at,  276 ;  talk  at,  290. 

Ficino,  Marzilio,  on  platonio  love, 
154,  158,  159. 

Firenzuola,  on  beauty,  196;  his 
stories,  299  ;  his  inspiration,  399. 

flirtation,  103-107. 

Florentine  worship  of  Plato,  153, 
154 ;  idea  of  charm,  198. 

flowers,  243. 

Folengo,  465. 

Francis  I.,  62,  125,  169,  170,  240, 
251,  265 ;  his  mistresses,  363,  364. 

Francis  de  Paule,  St.,  story  of,  461. 

Franco,  Veronica,  358. 

free  love,  327. 

Fregoso,  detractor  of  women,  298. 

French  marriage  customs,  37-39; 
country  gentry,  64-66;  society, 
140-142;  worship  of  rank,  144, 
145 ;  idea  of  charm,  198 ;  drama, 
282,  283 ;  conversation,  296,  297 ; 
letters,  308-310. 

Gambara,  Veronica,  364,  394. 

gambling,  237. 

Gastius'  table  talk,  232. 

Gazius,  Florida  Corona,  treatise  on 

health,  255. 
German  girls'  education,  89;    table 

talk,  297  ;  opposition  to  Italy,  415, 

416 ;  liberalism,  433  ;  narrowness, 

434 ;  monks,  466. 


INDEX 


507 


Gioconda,  see  Monna  Lisa. 
girls'education,  86-100 ;  tutors,  98, 99. 
Gonzaga,  Julia,  52. 
Gonzaga,  Leonora,  28. 
Goujon's  statue  of  Diana,  208. 

hair,  popular  colour  of,  199. 

hair-dressing,  216,  217. 

handwritings,  303,  304. 

Helysenne  de  Crenne,  39. 

Henri  II.,  364. 

Ileptameron  quoted,  24, 25, 33, 34, 49, 
53,  84,  112  n,  151,  173,  175,  189, 
212,  213,  296,  298,  299,  329,  334, 
335,  351,  353,  354;  realist  char- 
acter of,  382-385. 

Heroet  de  la  Maisonneuve,  344,  418. 

history,  401. 

hood,  the,  217. 

households,  constitution  of,  66. 

Huguenots  on  dancing,  236,  237. 

hunting,  246-253. 

husbands'  authority,  109,  110. 

Hiitten,  Ulrich  von,  83,  466,  467. 

hydrotherapeutics,  254-258. 

illegitimacy,  338. 

Imitation  of  Christ,  139,  150. 

Imperia,  courtesan,  358,  361. 

impromptus,  300. 

incomes,  64,  68,  117. 

Inghirami,  Tommaso,  280,  281,  300; 
anecdote  of,  431. 

*  innocents,'  the,  212. 

instrumental  music,  276-278. 

interviews,  29. 

Isabella  d'Este,  see  D'Este. 

Isabella  of  Aragon,  312. 

Isabella  the  Catholic,  323. 

Italian  marriage  customs,  34 ;  educa- 
tion, 94-96;  drama,  278-281 ;  con- 
versation, 285-296;  letters,  306; 
monks,  465. 

Jews,  hatred  of,  478 

Joan  of  Aragon,  312,  407 

Joanna,  wife  of    Philip    the   Fair, 

anecdote  of,  114,  115. 
Josquin  Desprez,  275. 
Jove,  Paul,  52,  292. 
Julius  II.,  anecdote  of,  68;  hunting, 

247;  beard,  370. 

kissing,  233-235. 

Labe,  Louise,  poetess,  on  dress,  218 ; 


accomplishments,  245 ;  on  music, 

274 ;  poetry,  412,  413. 
La  Bruyere  quoted,  115,  210,  296, 

372. 
ladies'  letters,  305. 
Lancelot  du  Lak,  269. 
lapdogs,  244. 
La  Rochefoucauld  quoted,  111,  184, 

214,  314. 
La  Salle,  Antoine  de,  79. 
La  Tremoille,  Louis  de,  29,  117  ;  see 

Gabrielle  de  Bourbon. 
Lefevre  d'Etaples,  250,  264. 
Lemaire  de  Beiges,  79,  327,  401. 
Leo  X.,  247,  280,  300,  362,  425,  431. 
Leonardo's  Monna  Lisa,  191 ;  ideal 

of  beauty,  200. 
letters,  domestic,  126,  127  n. 
letter- writing,  303. 
liberalism  at  Rome,  430,  431,  433, 

434,  473. 
life  at  spas,  259,  260. 
Limosin,  Leonard,  207. 
literature,   licentious    character   of, 

391-393. 
Longueil,  473. 
Louis  XL,  118. 

Louis  XII.,  64,  67, 118, 129,  234,  249. 
Louise  of  Savoy,  her  views  on  educa- 
tion, 77,  85,  96 ;  her  sphere,  170, 

311 ;  her  reading  and  books,  262, 

265,  267;    her  politics,  311;    on 

mystic  love,  335;  her  principles, 

354. 
Luther  on  celibacy,  32 ;  divorce,  338 ; 

on  women,  467 ;  his  true  relation 

to  Reformation,  468. 
Lyons,    headquarters    of    feminine 

poetry,  411. 

Madeleine,  sister  of  Francis  I.,  309. 

Maillard,  Oliver,  on  bathing,  255; 
his  preaching,  459,  460. 

Marescalco,  Aretino's,  281. 

Margaret  of  Austria,  her  collections, 
226;  career,  313;  parrot,  408; 
poetry,  411. 

Margaret  of  France  (sister  of  Francis 
I.),  on  marriage,  49 ;  relations  with 
her  husband,  53 ;  on  doctors,  53, 
58;  influence  of  stars,  61;  charity, 
69;  education,  96-98;  authority 
of  husband,  123 ;  widow,  131 ;  re- 
marriage, 134 ;  defects  of  women, 
137;  remedy  for  materialism, 
147-149;    names    and    character, 


503 


INDEX 


170-172,  245,  418 ;  her  portraits, 
170,  210;  theory  of  love,  173-175; 
motto,,  176 ;  platonio  love,  189, 
352,  353 ;  compared  with  Anne  of 
France,  197 ;  petit  lever,  213 ;  on 
physical  decay,  214;  on  wearing 
black,  221 ;  books,  263,  266,  267 ; 
poetry,  274 ;  drama,  282,  283 ;  as 
a  talker,  285 ;  her  failure,  287, 475 ; 
handwriting,  304;  moral  scheme, 
334;  toleration,  355,  475;  relations 
with  Francis'  mistresses,  364 ; 
intellectual  influence,  378-383 ; 
lovers,  384, 385;  writings,  386,387; 
vacillation,  418 ;  religion,  436, 
437,  442-445,  457,  470. 

Margaret  of  France  (wife  of  Henry 
of  Navarre),  486.. 

Margaret  of  Lorraine,  133. 

Margaret  of  Savoy,  172,  481-486. 

Marone,  Andrea,  273. 

Marot,  Clement,  29,  165  n,  198  n, 
212,  287,  315,  317,  353,  407,  457. 

marriage:  customs,  37-42 ;  presents, 
721. 

Mary  of  Cleves,  67. 

Mary  of  England,  129,  217,  274. 

Mary  Stuart,  92, 376. 

materialism,  456.. 

matrimony,  test  questions  for,  33. 

Maupas'  sparrow,,  407. 

medicine,  54-58. 

men  of  letters,  392. 

Menot  on  death,,  491. 

Michelangelo,,  his  nephew's  marri- 
age, 35, 36  j  on  love,  162;  relations 
with  Vittoria  Colonna,  162,  182, 
183,,  213^,  214,  395,  396;  his  Eve, 
202^  Last  Judgment,  204,  324; 
Virgin  of  Casa  Buonarotti,  323; 
Pieta,  323,  324 ;  ideal  of  woman, 
324;-  sonnets  to  courtesans,  359; 
frescoes,  428. 

Mirror  of  the  Sinful  Soul,  92,  386. 

mistresses  of  Francis  I.,  363. 

money,  importance  of,  117-121 ;  wor- 
ship of,  145,  146, 148, 149. 

monks,  458-466. 

Monna  Lisa,  Leonardo's,  191. 

Montaigne  on  marriage,  46  ;  on  ca- 
pricious treatment  of  women,  52 ; 
on  business,  65 ;  on  peasant  nur- 
ture, 73  n;  on  college  education, 
76,  78;  on  women's  'policy,'  86 ; 
on  his  daughter,  88;  95;  on 
moneyed  wives,  121;  on  tears  of 


mourning,  130 ;  his  scepticism, 
191,  479,  488-490;  on  coquetry, 
362  n;  on  women's  virtue,  420;  on 
faith,  425 ;  on  death,  491. 

moon,  woman  compared  to  the,  423. 

Morosina,  Bembo's  mistress,  366, 867. 

Mortemart,  ladies  of,  286. 

motherhood,  71-74,  77. 

mother-in-law,  the,  110. 

mourning,  128. 

Muguet,  falcon  of  Louis  XII.,  250. 

music,  83,  88,  270-278. 

Mysteries,  282,  283. 

mysticism,  varieties  of,  446-448, 465. 

mythology,  use  of,  156,  455. 

Naples,  love  of  art  at,  225. 

Nature  and  man,  138,  139,  254,  449  ; 
platonist  attitude  towards,  241-243, 
253,  254. 

naturalism,  Buskin's,  498,  499 ;  con- 
trasted with  Bourget's,  499,  500. 

needlework,  88. 

Nifo,  his  changeableness,  152,  331; 
catalogue  of  love-motives,  191, 192; 
pen  portrait  of  Jeanne  of  Aragon, 
208,  209 ;  anecdote  of,  327,  328 ; 
platonism,  332,  333 ;  Phausina 
Bhea,  348,  399 ;  feminism,  369. 

NouveUes,  259,  266,  267. 

nudities,  202-209. 

nurses,  73. 

Ochino,  339,  428,  469,  470. 
Ockeghem,  John  of,  275. 
Olympia  Morata,  94  n,  428. 
Ordelam,     husband    of     Catherine 

Sforza,  321. 
Orleans,  duchess  of,  her  charity,  66 ; 

love  of  music,  273. 
Ovid,  popularity  of,  265,  266. 

painting,  396,  377. 

palinods,  the,  446. 

Papillon,  Almanque,  149,  480. 

patronage,  393-396,  398. 

Paul  II.,  247. 

Paul  in.,  432,  469. 

Paul  rv.,  the  'breeches-maker,'  204. 

pen  portraits,  208-210. 

Peregrino,  Caviceo's  romance,  22. 

Pernette  du  Guillet,  412. 

Perugino,  375. 

Petrarch,  234,  265,  272,  406,  487. 

'  Phaedra,'  see  Inghirami. 

Phausina  Bhea,  210,  348. 


INDEX 


509 


Philippa  of  Gueldres,  133. 

philosophy,  love  of,  401,  402. 

physical  exercise,  244. 

Pia,  Emilia,  288,  305. 

Piccoli,  Gabriele,  322. 

Pico  della  Mirandola,  154. 

pilgrimages,  240. 

Pio,  Alberto,  277,  454,  462. 

plate,  family,  229. 

Plato,  theory  of  love,  151-153;  vogue 
of,  154,  402,  448 ;  theory  of  beauty, 
158,  161 ;  Nature,  241 ;  relation  to 
Christianity,  425 ;  negative  results 
of  doctrine,  494-496. 

platonic  love,  213,  339-344,  348. 

platonism,  154,  157,  164,  177-193, 
197,  260,  297,  334,  336 ;  causes  of 
its  failure,  487,  488 ;  495-498. 

Pleiade,  the,  172,  478-481. 

poetry,  262,  271,  404-408 ;  and  hunt- 
ing, 248-250. 

Poggio,  his  facetiae,  100,  154;  on 
Baden,  259,  260. 

Poirier,  son-in-law  of  Monsieur,  117. 

Poitiers,  three  maids  of,  102 ;  ladies 
of,  288. 

Pole,  Cardinal,  429. 

Politian,  154,  265,  409. 

polygamy,  339. 

Pomponius  Laetus,  154,  278. 

Pontanus,  88,  104,  144,  240. 

poodles,  244,  407,  408. 

portraits  of  ladies  as  Venus,  205- 
207. 

Postel,  Guillaume,  471,  472. 

priesthood  of  women,  428. 

princesses'  love,  187,  188. 

publicity,  writers'  objection  to,  376. 

Puritans  and  music,  277. 

puys  d'amour,  419. 

Babelais,  pedigrees,  145 ;  on  colours, 
221;  antiplatonist,  325,  336;  his 
abbey  of  Thelema,  465  ;  his  mys- 
ticism, 465. 

Eaphael  on  marriage,  36,  37 ;  Vision 
of  a  Knight,  330 ;  anecdote  of,  431. 

Baulin,  Jean,  bis  sermon,  108. 

reading,  88,  262. 

religion  and  aesthetics,  423,  424; 
relations  to  philosophy  and  Plato, 
425,  426,  479  ff. 

Benee  of  France,  on  influence  of 
stars,  61 ;  letters,  308 ;  career  and 
character,  314-316,  456. 

Bomances,  100,  268-270. 


Boman    aristocracy,   143;    idea    of 

beauty,  143 ;  liberalism,  430-434. 
Bonsard,  60,  198,  215,  235,  343,  365, 

376,  477,  478. 
Bosera,  Isabella,  409. 
Buskin,  111;   on  nature,  137,  138; 

his    naturalism    compared    with 

Bourget's,  498-500. 

Sadoleto,  429. 

•  Saffredent '  (character  in  Hepta- 
merori),  385. 

Saint-Gelais,  Melin  de,  235,  327,  431. 

Saint-Gelais,  Octovien  de,  167,  266, 
300,  326. 

Saint- Simon  on  Mortemart  ladies, 
286. 

Salel,  Hugues,  382. 

Savonarola,  163,  164,  278,  297,  322, 
459. 

Scaldasole,  Marchesa,  184. 

scepticism,  479. 

Semblancay,  141. 

serving  maids,  106,  112. 

Sforza,  Ascanio,  248,  249. 

Sforza,  Bianca,  42,  43. 

Sforza,  Catherine,  widowhood,  29; 
her  wedding  presents,  40  n;  al- 
chemy, 61,  62;  character  and 
career,  245,  246,  320-322. 

Ship  of  Fools,  416. 

slave  girls  as  concubines,  113. 

small  families,  71. 

sonnet,  popularity  of,  405. 

Spagnuoli,  Battista,  on  marriage,  21 ; 
on  baths,  258 ;  on  monks,  460. 

Spain,  education  of  girls  in,  91-94; 
idea  of  charm,  198. 

spas,  257,  258. 

Spinola,  Thomasina,  190. 

stick,  the,  110,  111. 

1  stork-love,'  855,  441. 

story-telling,  299. 

subsidiary  marriage,  339. 

Sygea,  Loysa,  409. 

table-talk,  231,  232. 
Theresa,  St.,  92,  197. 
Tiraqueau,  27,  35. 
titles,  love  of,  143. 
topics  of  conversation,  294. 
tournaments,  245,  246. 
Triboulet,  34. 
Trithemius,  458  n,  463. 
Tullia  d'Aragona,  her  book  on  the 
Infinity  of  Perfect  Love,  164 ;  her 


510 


INDEX 


influence,   857,   3C0;    a    poetess, 
413. 
tutors,  78-81. 

Urbino,  court  of,  159, 290, 303, 381  n. 
Urbino,  duke  of,  52, 145, 293 ;  duchess 
of,  41,  43,  52,  129  n,  309. 

Valois,  court  of,  369,  486. 

Vegio  on  tutors,  79. 

Venice,  marriages  at,  41 ;  education 
at,  96 ;  idea  of  charm,  198 ;  musio 
at,  277 ;  courtesans  at,  361. 

Venus,  passion  for  painting,  201-205. 

Virard,  publisher,  392. 

Vergerio,  451,  452,  457,  458. 

Vert-vert,  408. 

Villamarina,Isabella,anecdoteof,320. 

Virgil,  unpopularity  of,  265. 


virtue  represented  in  painting  as 
repellent,  329,  330. 

Vittoria  Colonna,  see  Colonna. 

Vives,  on  education  of  girls,  92,  98, 
100;  on  husbands,  111;  on  danc- 
ing and  kissing,  233,  234. 

vocal  music,  270-273. 

Voiture,  187. 

volta,  the,  236,  237. 

war,  317-319. 

wealth,  worship  of,  222,  236. 
widows,  128-134. 
witchcraft,  426,  427. 
women  as  professional  writers,  409 
410. 

Zwingle  on  education,  82. 


Printed  by  Cowan  &•  Co.,  Limited,  Perth. 


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.  APR  17 1995 


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